PARKING at the Great Western Hospital is to be audited by council officers to ensure it meets Government targets for reduction in car use.

They will try to discover the number of people driving to work alone.

And if fewer than 20 per cent of the workers at Great Western Hospital are using alternatives to the car, such as cycling, car sharing or walking, Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust will be asked to find an extra £25,000 a year to invest in further green travel measures.

The audit follows a stand made by a number of nurses at Great Western Hospital who have refused to pay parking fines because there are not enough staff parking spaces.

Nurses Tracey Robertson, Kerry Garside and Helen Barrett have been told they must pay £30 or £60 if they do not pay within two weeks.

Auxiliary nurse Helen Burnett only earns £10,000 a year.

She was given a parking ticket after she parked her care in a visitors' parking space at the Great Western Hospital.

On the morning she received her ticket Miss Garside had driven around the staff car park for 15 minutes before giving up and parking in the patients' car park.

She explained: "There is no way that I am going to pay that ticket. I didn't want to turn up for work late. I have written to the borough council explaining my situation, but I have not had any reply.

"The borough council is still refusing to budge on the issue, but it is something that I feel strongly about."

"We are told to cycle or share a lift in to work, but because I live in Purton neither of these options is available to me."

Because the hospital was built on a green field site, the council capped the number of parking spaces they were allowed, and the Trust is now charged with encouraging staff and patients to find alternative ways to get to the hospital.

No one was available for comment from Swindon Borough Council.