Car parks fees and charges review

The review was carried out against a backdrop of the Council needing to reduce its day to day spending by £4.1 million by 2027-28.

As far as possible, Council services must cover their costs, including our car parks. Our review has shown that minimal fee increases will be needed to continue to do this.

While we do have to make some changes to our fees, and bring in some new fees, we have done everything we can to keep these as low as possible.

• People using our open spaces car parks will now be able to park for three full hours for free, before needing to pay a small charge. This means many people using them to watch local sports matches will still not need to pay.
• We’ll be introducing half an hour’s free parking in two locations in Egham.
• We’re setting up a new process to allow free parking for some community events. We already allow free parking locally for four events and earlier this month we allowed free parking across all Council car parks for Remembrance Sunday.

Our review also found that people using car parks where we do charge a fee were effectively subsidising drivers using our free car parks. To be fair to all drivers, we are putting in place arrangements so all motorists using our car parks pay something towards the costs of our parking service, rather than the burden falling on people using the fee paying locations.

The changes we’re making, which were set out in a report to our Environment and Sustainability Committee at its November 2024 meeting are comparable with other boroughs in Surrey. Having benchmarked against other local authorities, our offering of three hours free parking for the Runnymede open spaces car parks is the most generous.  

A Council spokesperson said: “We’ve lost nearly £160,000 in parking income since the pandemic because of changing driving habits, without closing a single car park we own. We don’t intend to close any locations and no-one wants to increase charges, but we have to take difficult decisions to balance our books. We’re on a journey to making sure the fees paid by motorists who choose to use our car parks actually meet the future cost of running our parking service. These increases are absolutely not about making a profit but we must continue to cover our costs.

“Only by doing so can we ensure that Council Tax payers’ money is used to fund our most important services which people rely on.”

We’ve looked at car park prices very carefully, and to continue to cover the costs of running our parking service, there needs to be a small across the board increase from April 2025.

• Town centre car parks will see a 10p rise per hour.
• Out of town car parks will rise by 5p per hour.
• After being able to park for free for three hours at our open spaces car parks, there will be a flat rate ‘recreational use’ fee of £2.80.
• A flat rate £2 evening and £3 overnight charge will be brought in to our car parks.

The spokesperson added: “These charges are likely to be a tiny percentage in overall costs for people, but they will mean that our parking service continues to be self-sustaining and our limited funds can be used for other important purposes.”

The nominal changes mean drivers choosing to use our car parks will pay more towards the cost of running our parking service, including:

• maintenance and repairs
• signage,
• lighting and CCTV,
• administrative staff, parking wardens and their vehicles,
• ticket machines and other equipment, and
• new systems to make parking easier for people, like ANPR.

As well as pay and display charges, there will be an annual increase in permits, but we will review our permit options to enhance flexibility, affordability, and choice.