GPs at St Paul's Medical Centre in Cheltenham are appealing to members of the public not to use their car park unless they are visiting for a medical appointment.

The centre is home to four GP practices and has nearly 48,000 registered patients, yet at any given time, up to half of the available car parking spaces are occupied by people working in local businesses or visiting the town centre.

This means that patients, staff and doctors, including those who carry out home visits, are often unable to park, resulting in both patients and doctors being late for appointments.

There have also been serious issues with emergency vehicles being unable to get into the car park.

Dr Cameron Jackson, GP at The Royal Well Surgery, said: "We are kindly asking people to be considerate of others and please stop parking at the centre, unless they have a medical reason for their visit.

"The car park at the centre is invaluable to all our patients, especially those with mobility issues or disabilities, as well as busy surgery staff who are carrying out vital medical care and support services for patients.

"Sadly, some of us have also encountered aggression from people parking improperly, which is upsetting and stressful.

"We absolutely want to provide the best possible care to our patients, and to continue to do this, as a last resort, we are having to introduce stricter measures about who can use the car park."

The problem has continued, despite practices politely asking local businesses to stop their staff from parking there.

Now the practices are set to bring in a parking management system, which will come into effect from Monday August 15.

The system is non-profit making for the practices and is solely designed to solve the parking problems. It uses automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to record all vehicles arriving at and departing from the car park.

Patients and other people using the health centre facilities who enter the car park will automatically be allowed to park free for 90 minutes. If their vehicle is parked for longer than 90 minutes, they will be issued with a parking charge notice from a private company.

Any patients who legitimately need to park for longer than 90 minutes should speak to the reception team at their surgery to be issued with an exemption notice.

Staff will have "authorised user vehicle" status, giving them permission to park all day.

In the weeks leading up to the introduction of the new system, warning notes will be placed on improperly parked cars and signs outlining the new enforcement regulations will be on display, both in the car park and inside the surgeries.