An elderly husband has slammed Colchester General Hospital’s “terrible” car park after being hit with a fine because there were no disabled bays available.

Gordon Carpenter, 81, claims he was forced to park on double yellow lines when he took his wife, June, who is currently in a wheelchair, for her hip treatment at the Elmstead ward.

He even went back to the car park during the two and half hour treatment last Wednesday to see if anyone disabled bays had become available, but by the end of the appointment had been given a parking ticket.

Another three cars, with blue badges, that were also parked on the double yellow lines had been ticketed and Mr Carpenter estimates 50 drivers across the hospital site had been fined on that day.

He claims that he has only been able to park in a disabled bay once out of his last four visits to the Turner Road, Hospital.

He said: “It is terrible, to me they should be supplying [enough] spaces, they want to concrete over all the grass verges to save on the expense of cutting and turn them into car park areas, if they can’t build a multi-storey.