Guildford’s New Car Park Charges Include: ‘A Very Reasonable Increase’

Published on: 24 Jan, 2025
Updated on: 24 Jan, 2025

York Road Car Park Google Street View

By Emily Dalton

local democracy reporter

Changes are coming to car parking in Guildford a popular shopping destination for residents throut Surrey and beyond. There will be price hikes and new ways of paying.

After three years of long-stay car parking charges being frozen, Guildford Borough Council has decided to raise the prices by 10 per cent. Farnham Road Multistorey Car Park charges will increase from the standard daytime rate of £1.10 per hour to £1.20 per hour.

Bad news for early birds as the council has also agreed to remove the pre-7am £1 per hour rate. The maximum daily capped tariff will also increase from £9 per day to £10. Season tickets, contract parking and garage fees will all increase by 10 per cent, adding more revenue to the council.

Cllr George Potter

Cllr George Potter (Lib Dem, Burpham) said: “If you think about how long that [three year] time frame has been, and how high inflation has been over that time, a 10 per cent increase is actually a very reasonable increase … and very overdue.”

Hikes in car parking prices were agreed by Guildford Borough Council’s executive on January 3. Describing the car parking as a “financial life saver” for the council, Cllr Catherine Houston (Lib Dem, Shalford) told the Executive the parking fees “allows us to keep our services running [and] without it the council would be in financial difficulty”.

Cllr Catherine Houston

Cllr Houston said there is “no intention” to increase short-stay car parking prices this year as they were last changed in April 2024.

Other big changes coming to the town centre scene is York Road Multistorey Car Park will change from a short-stay shopper car park to a long-stay one. Instead of the £4 tariff for 3-hours parking, visitors will have to pay the standard daytime rate of £1.20 per hour between 8am and 6pm. But the maximum capped daily charge will be reduced from £11 to £10 per day.

Contactless parking machines will “soon” be installed into all council-owned car parks in Guildford, according to council documents. The report said the new technology could generate around £300,000 additional net revenue per year by people using car payment rather than limiting the length of their stays based upon the amount of change they have.

“Cash [payment] is expensive to collect and manage,” said Cllr Houston, explaining why contactless payments are more efficient. She said part of the reason for the change was to encourage longer stays and more revenue, but also it is better for people who don’t want to download an app to pay for parking.

Executive members of the council also agreed to join the National Parking Platform (NPP), a new initiative which allows all parking apps to share technology and date. In practice, this means you do not have to download lots of different apps when paying for car parking in Guildford.