A COUNCIL could earn money twice from parking spaces and charge less than the “extortionate” cost of parking at Southend Hospital.

Southend Council has approved plans to install parking meters on some of the roads surrounding the hospital.

The spots are currently reserved for resident permits.

Under the new scheme those who have paid for permits will not have to pay the additional parking charges but the spaces could be taken up by visitors parking and paying during the day.

The spaces are set to be a “shared resource” available to permit holders or pay and display parkers between 9.30am to 4.30pm.

The idea is to make use of the resident spaces while people are away at work.

The spaces on the streets are set to be cheaper than parking at the hospital, which could take revenue away from the hospital.

The scheme was discussed by Southend Council’s traffic and working party on Thursday evening and it was unanimously agreed that the proposals are “advertised”, which will lead to a formal consultation process.

The plan initially included increasing the cost of the pay and display bays to match the hospital’s parking charges but the chair of the working party, Councillor Andrew Moring, said the council is “not in competition with the hospital”.

Vice chairman of the committee Tony Cox branded the hospital’s parking charges as “extortionate”.

He said: “It’s daylight robbery and its why people want to park elsewhere but this is about availability of spaces. Believe it or not people will pay anything, they just want to be able to park and they can’t do that because there are spaces that are not being utilised.”

He added he is “100 per cent” behind the plan to make the resident parking bays dual use but they should charge the same as the council’s existing pay and display bays and that would make it “simpler for everyone”.

A survey which found that along the six roads closest to the hospital there are 94 free resident permit spaces in the morning, and 88 in the afternoon. The roads affected would be Prittlewell Chase, Cardigan Avenue, Carlingford Drive, Hillborough Road, Carlton Avenue and Lavender Grove. The trust which runs the hospital declined to comment.