Fettes College offers free parking to NHS staff at Western General hospital

Fettes College is offering free parking to NHS staff working at the Western General hospital next to the school.

Some 150 spaces have been made available at the college campus and the Westwoods Health Club parking area.

They will be available free of charge for the foreseeable future, while Fettes College is closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The school’s term finished on March 19 for the Easter vacation and will not begin again until April 19.

At that point, however, pupils will begin distance learning and will not return to the school campus, so Western General staff will still be able to use the carpark.

The school’s head teacher Helen Harrison said: “We want to do all we can to support our local community inthese uncertain times so we are of course delighted to help the NHS in whatever small way we can.

“By providing free parking and access to the Fettes campus, we are simply showing our deepest gratitude for the NHS and all they do.”

Parking charges have been scrapped at NHS hospitals during the crisis in order to make it easier for staff to get to and from work.

It recently emerged that the Scottish Government will have to pay £950,000 to cover the cost of the free parking – hitting taxpayers.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman issued an appeal to private companies such as Consort, which runs Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, to waive the charges in support of the “national effort” to combat Covid-19, but they refused.