TAUNTON'S Musgrove Park Hospital is set to have as many car parking slots as beds by the end of next year.

A long-awaited multi-storey car park will provide space for 778 vehicles when it opens before Christmas 2005 -- and it won't cost the NHS a penny.

Several firms have expressed an interest in building the £7million stack, which will more than double the current capacity at Musgrove, plagued by parking problems for years.

A total of 15 interested parties who attended an open day at the hospital last week have been invited to submit proposals for the scheme.

The firm winning the contract will recoup the cost of building the structure through parking charges over the next 25 years.

A shortlist of six companies will be drawn up from the initial bidders, and then three will be asked to put in formal tenders.

Building work could take up to a year and the barriers are expected to go up for the first time in under two years.

The lack of parking spaces at the hospital has led to complaints from patients unable to get to appointments on time, members of the public forced to walk long distances to visit and disgruntled staff unable to drive to work at the 776-bed hospital.