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

Published on: 24 Jan, 2025
Updated on: 28 Jan, 2025

York Road Car Park. Google Street View

By Emily Dalton

local democracy reporter

Changes are coming to car parking in Guildford. There will be price rises and new ways of paying. 

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

There is 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 “allow 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.

At the York Road multi-storey car park, there will be a change from a short-stay shopper car park to a long-stay one. Instead of the £4 tariff for three 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 be installed “soon” 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.

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

  1. Dave Middleton Reply

    January 24, 2025 at 7:51 pm

    A query for Cllr Houston. Will using the contactless parking charge system incur an additional fee, as is the case when using the RingGo app facility (20p at present)?

    • Catherine Houston Reply

      January 25, 2025 at 1:48 pm

      Happy to supply that information.

      Contactless payment is already available at our four barrier pay on foot car parks (Castle, Farnham Rd, Tunsgate and York Rd) and also at Bedford Road multi-storey, which is Pay and Display. No additional fees will be charged for using contactless payments, as currently, nor when the new equipment is shortly installed across the remainder of GBC’s pay and display car parks. Likewise the new barrier pay on foot equipment, which is also due to be installed soon.

      The fee to use the RingGo app (charged by RingGo) is 10p (not 20p). Some customers choose to opt in to receive SMS receipts and parking session reminders that may incur additional charges.

      Catherine Houston is a Lib Dem borough councillor for Shalford and lead councillor for Commercial Services

      Editor’s comment: Thank you for prompt response and clarification.

      • Jim Allen Reply

        January 25, 2025 at 4:00 pm

        But the real question is paying by cash available for those of us who would rather not give our card details away to parking companies natorious for billing at will with no right of appeal for simply missing a sign or being 30 seconds over time leaveing the car park.

        • Roger Carnegie Reply

          January 26, 2025 at 6:26 pm

          A bit conspiracy theory that comment.

          Millions of people enjoy the convenience and flexibility of contactless payments.

          Contactless payments do not give your card details away as the card data is not held by anyone but your bank. Bank cards and phones allow contactless.

          I believe the grace period is ten minutes not thirty seconds (Cllr Houston might correct me), which feels reasonable to me when parking.

          Personally, I prefer to cycle into town and avoid the parking charges altogether.

          What does amaze me is that the High Street has free parking in the evening. A good revenue source is missed by this.

          In my view, through traffic on the High Street should not be allowed at any time.

          • Frank Emery

            January 27, 2025 at 2:48 pm

            Am I correct in thinking that Bedford Road car park will revert to hourly payments?

  2. Valerie Thompson Reply

    January 25, 2025 at 7:02 pm

    I do hope that contactless payments will be used in addition to both cash and cards. Not everyone has a mobile phone.

  3. M Durant Reply

    January 26, 2025 at 7:16 pm

    Funny how when parking meters where just cash it was a lot cheaper to park. Now that they are mostly automatic it’s much more expensive. Yes one can pay cash for now, hopefully they won’t remove that method. There are also other car parks that one can pay with cash, the problem is if they get jammed and are not checked regularly.

    They might want to save money on someone checking them and collecting while instead prefering to spend money on expensive apps, corporations, remote entities who are easily hacked and use and misuse our data and all our details and can potentially get hacked.

  4. Catherine Houston Reply

    January 27, 2025 at 11:34 am

    In response to a number of comments.

    I am happy to confirm that cash payment will be retained in all GBC car parks, but studies show that contactless payment (used in almost every shop and hospitality venue in the UK) results in less cash being used. Cash collection is expensive so reduced use of it means lower cash collection costs for GBC, which is helpful in the current economic climate, but we believe there should still be an option for those who wish to use cash to be able to do so.

    By law, a 10-minute grace period applies in pay and display car parks, where overstaying might otherwise result in a penalty. The AA website explains this well – https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/legal/council-parking-grace-period.

    However this grace period does not apply in barrier pay on foot car parks. Nonetheless, Guildford Borough Council is currently one of very few car park operators that also apply the overstay grace provision to its barriered car parks.

    On-street car parking moved to the control of Surrey County Council’s control in April 2023. Allowing free parking on Guildford’s High Street in the evening is a revenue opportunity missed for SCC who are struggling with huge debts and massive loan repayments to cover those debts.

    Catherine Houston is a Lib Dem borough councillor for Shalford and lead councillor for Commercial Services

    Editor’s response: That you, once again, for responding to reader’s questions so promptly.

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