A HEALTH board is to invest more than £2million in extra car parking spaces following safety concerns.

A total of 518 extra spaces will be created at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, Ayr Hospital and Ayrshire Central in Irvine.

Parking wardens will patrol the sites and cameras installed and the board has said it will introduce fixed penalty fines if restrictions are breached "persistently" by visitors, patients or staff.

Concerns were raised by the Health and Safety Executive in 2011 about congestion and "unsatisfactory" parking arrangements.

Patients, visitors and staff can park for free at hospital sites. The board said it has no plans to introduce charges, unlike other boards including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

A total of 155 spaces will be created at University Hospital Ayr, 257 at Crosshouse and 106 at Ayrshire Central in Irvine.

Patients and visitors will be given priority for short term spaces with long-term parking primarily for staff use.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran said parking had been a growing problem for a number years and was a "frequent" source of complaints from visitors and patients.

The managed car parking system will be introduced at Crosshouse and Ayr hospital by October 2015.

A spokesman said: "The new managed car parking arrangements will not include a system of fines in the first instance.

"However, should the measures proposed failed to address the problem of inappropriate and unsafe parking, after a reasonable period of operation, it is proposed to introduce a system of fixed penalty fines to deal with persistent offenders."