About 100 free long-stay bays sit minutes from Cheltenham Spa, if you register a £0.00 stay first. Plus every council car park tariff, from 30p an hour upwards.
Parking in Cheltenham is run by two different councils, and that is where most of the money gets wasted. The borough council owns the car parks. Gloucestershire County Council owns every yellow line, every on-street bay, every permit and the park and ride. A permit from one is worthless in the other’s spaces, and the two put their prices up at different times of year.
Everything below was checked on 1 September 2026 against the councils’ own pages, the county’s sealed tariff notice and the station operator, each linked to the fact it supports.
The free bays almost nobody uses
Gloucestershire County Council runs a scheme called Cheltenham railway zone 14. It provides “approximately 100 free long stay parking spaces” on parts of Eldorado Road, Queens Road and Christ Church Road, a short walk from Cheltenham Spa station (Gloucestershire County Council, Cheltenham railway zone 14).
There is one condition, and getting it wrong turns a free space into a penalty. The bays run on the MiPermit cashless system at a tariff of £0.00. You have to register the stay before you park, either online or by calling 0345 505 1155 and quoting the location on the sign. Parking without registering is parking without a valid session.
For context, the station’s own car park is on Queens Road too, and charges £6.50 a day.
Council car parks, cheapest to dearest
Cheltenham Borough Council runs fifteen car parks. The longest-stay rate ranges from £2.20 at Coronation Square to £16.80 at Regent Arcade, a nearly eightfold spread inside one town.
All figures below are from the council’s own car parks page.
| Car park | Postcode | Spaces | 1 hour | Longest stay | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coronation Square | GL51 7RG | 143 | £0.30 | £2.20 over 4hr | Free |
| Pittville Pump Room | GL52 3JE | 150 | £1.00 | £6.00 over 3hr | 10am to 8pm |
| Bath Terrace | GL50 2BA | 204 | £1.30 | £6.40 over 3hr | Free |
| Commercial Street | GL50 2AZ | 33 | £1.30 | £6.50 over 3hr | Free |
| Royal Well | GL50 3DS | 48 | £2.10 | £6.80 (4hr max stay) | 10am to 8pm |
| Town Centre East | GL52 2SA | 354 | £1.50 | £8.00 over 4hr | 10am to 8pm |
| Chelt Walk | GL50 3PR | 212 | £2.10 | £11.50 over 4hr | 10am to 8pm |
| High Street | GL50 3HQ | 126 | not listed | £11.50 over 4hr | 10am to 8pm |
| Sherborne Place | GL52 2RS | 103 | £2.10 | £11.50 over 4hr | 10am to 8pm |
| Bath Parade | GL53 7HN | 75 | £2.10 | £13.60 over 6hr | 10am to 8pm |
| Rodney Road | GL50 1HX | 102 | £2.20 | £13.60 over 6hr | 10am to 8pm |
| St George’s Road | GL50 3DT | 26 | £2.10 | £13.60 over 6hr | 10am to 8pm |
| St James Street | GL52 2SH | 200 | £2.10 | £13.60 over 6hr | 10am to 8pm |
| West End | GL50 3HU | 34 | £1.50 | £13.60 over 6hr | 10am to 8pm |
| Regent Arcade | GL50 1HN | 523 | £2.20 | £16.80 over 8hr | 10am to 12.30am |
Coronation Square in Hesters Way is the outlier that is worth a bus ride: 30p for an hour, £1.10 for four, £2.20 for the rest of the day, and nothing at all on a Sunday. High Street’s published tariff has no one-hour rate at all, so the cheapest ticket there is the two-hour one at £3.60.
Three car parks are genuinely free on Sundays
Most of the fifteen charge on Sundays from 10am to 8pm, and their listed hours say charges apply on bank holidays as normal. Three list no Sunday charge at all: Bath Terrace, Commercial Street and Coronation Square. Those same three also stop charging at 6pm on weekdays and Saturdays, while the rest run to 8pm. Bath Terrace is the only one of the fifteen whose entry makes no mention of bank holidays either way, so check the board there.
There is one entry on the council’s list we cannot reconcile, and it is worth checking the tariff board before you leave the car. When the council varied its parking order for Pittville Pump Room in 2022, the stated effect was to extend the maximum stay to ten hours and to “allow free parking on Sundays”, with an over-three-hours charge of £5.50 (Cheltenham Borough Council, parking orders). The council’s live car park page now gives Pittville Pump Room Sunday charging hours of 10am to 8pm and an over-three-hours charge of £6.00. No later variation on that page changes it. Assume you have to pay on a Sunday, and read the sign.
Two multi-storeys have gates rather than opening hours. Town Centre East locks at 8pm and stays shut on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and Easter Sunday. Regent Arcade locks at 1am and stays shut on Christmas Day. Regent Arcade also has a 2.0 metre height limit, a £15.80 lost ticket fee, and an evening tariff of £3.20 that only applies if you arrive after 5.30pm.
Every council car park pays through PayByPhone, using the location IDs on the tariff boards, and no other app.
Blue badge: free for three hours, except at Regent Arcade
Blue badge holders park free for the first three hours in every council car park, as long as the badge is displayed and the time clock is set to the arrival time. After three hours the standard tariff applies (blue badge parking).
Regent Arcade is the exception. Badge holders pay the standard rate there from the first minute. That is not an oversight; it was written into the 2020 parking order, which varied disabled parking provision “in identified council parking places, except Regent Arcade”.
If the marked bays are full, badge holders may use any other bay in a council car park. The largest provision is at Regent Arcade with 28 bays and Town Centre East with 22, though at Town Centre East those bays are on levels 4 to 7, so plan for the ramp.
On-street blue badge spaces, which are the county council’s, are in Winchcombe Street, Rodney Road, Bath Street, Clarence Street, Crescent Terrace, Regent Street and the eastern arm of Imperial Square, with existing provision in Grosvenor Terrace and the Inner Promenade.
On-street: county council, and it went up in April
Gloucestershire County Council raised on-street charges across Cheltenham, Gloucester and Cirencester on 6 April 2026. The minimum charge on most Cheltenham streets rose from £1.00 to £1.10. The rates below are from the county’s sealed public notice of 12 March 2026 (variation of on-street and off-street parking charges no. 1 2026).
The town is split into tariff bands rather than a single rate, and the gap between them is large:
- £0.50 minimum, 50 minute maximum charge slot: Douro Road, Lansdown Crescent, Lansdown Parade, Malvern Place, Malvern Road, Overton Road and Parabola Road south of Overton Road. Rates run 70p for an hour to £2.40 for four hours, and £4.80 beyond that on the Lansdown streets.
- £1.10 minimum, 41 minute slot: Clarence Street, Evesham Road, Montpellier Walk, New Street, Pittville Lawn, Queens Circus, St George’s Road, St James Square, Suffolk Place, Wellington Square, Winchcombe Street between Fairview Road and Clarence Road, and others. £1.60 for an hour, £3.30 for two hours.
- £1.10 minimum, 36 minute slot: Bath Road between Oriel Road and Cedar Court Road, Chapel Walk, Crescent Place, Crescent Terrace, Gloucester Place, Montpellier Drive, Montpellier Spa Road, Royal Well Place, St George’s Place, Vittoria Walk, and also Keynshambury Road, London Road, Oxford Street and Oxford Parade. £1.80 for an hour, £3.70 for two.
- £1.10 minimum, 31 minute slot, the dearest band: Argyll Road, College Road, Keynsham Road, Orrisdale Terrace, Promenade (south), St Luke’s Road (east), and Imperial Square. £2.20 for an hour, £4.30 for two, £7.20 for three.
- Imperial Square and Montpellier Street between St George’s Road and Fauconberg Road go further still: £18.10 beyond four hours.
- Jessop Avenue runs to £12.10 over four hours.
Bath Road between High Street and Oriel Road, Cambray Place, Oriel Road, Rodney Road at Rodney Hall, Wellington Street and Winchcombe Street between High Street and Fairview Road carry a three hour maximum stay on Sundays only.
Permits are the county’s, and cost £80
On-street permits are issued by Gloucestershire County Council, not the borough, and the application asks for your council tax account number. The borough will not read that number out over the phone, so you need a copy of your bill or a My Revenues and Benefits account (on-street parking and permits).
Current prices, from the county’s permit prices document:
| Permit | Charge |
|---|---|
| Resident, first permit | £80.00 a year |
| Resident, second permit | £160.00 a year |
| Eco car, vehicle excise duty band A, first permit | £50.00 a year |
| Motorcycle under 300cc, first permit | £43.00 a year |
| Visitor vouchers | £16.20 per set of 10, £1.62 each |
| Business permit, first | £400.00 |
| Business permit, Imperial Square | £1,200.00 |
| Private carer permit | £30.00 |
| NHS and NHS carer permits | Free |
| Hotel voucher | £3.50 per voucher per day |
| Green waiver, permitted parking areas | £20.00 a day |
| Red waiver, no waiting areas | £25.00 a day |
| Cheltenham Racecourse permit | Free |
Three details save money or trouble. Visitor vouchers are capped at 50 per household in any twelve months. One voucher covers a whole weekend, Saturday and Sunday together. And the reduced-price eco and motorcycle permits are not on the online form; you have to phone MiPermit on 0333 123 5900.
A county on-street permit is not valid in any borough car park. The council says so plainly, and it is the most common expensive mistake in the town.
Park and ride: £7 a day, or free if you take the bus
Arle Court Transport Hub charges £7.00 for a stay starting before 1pm and £3.50 after 1pm (Arle Court Transport Hub parking). That is cheaper than an all-day space in most of the town centre. Payment is through MiPermit, location number 705662.
Buy a ticket on the 99 or 100 park and ride bus and the parking is free. There is a condition attached that catches people out: if the QR code ticket is not scanned on the bus, you get a penalty charge notice and a fine of up to £50. The same £50 applies if you park for an event at Arle Court and the parking was not included in your event ticket.
Longer stays are cheaper by permit: a carnet of eleven stays for £64.00, a week for £28.80, a month for £112.00. Pick-up and drop-off is free for 20 minutes in the open air west car park, and the 75kW rapid chargers there come with 40 minutes of free parking while charging.
Cheltenham Spa station
The station car park is on Queens Road, GL51 8NP, and is run by APCOA. It has 316 spaces, 17 of them for blue badge holders, plus 4 motorcycle bays, and it runs on ANPR (APCOA, Cheltenham Spa Station):
- Monday to Friday: £6.50 for the day, or £4.90 arriving after 4pm
- Saturday and Sunday: £4.90
- Bank holidays: normal charges apply
- Pay by APCOA Connect using location code 2112, by ScanPay QR code, or at a machine
- Motorcycles park free in the marked bays
Blue badge parking is free here, but only if you register the vehicle on the APCOA blue badge portal first. Displaying the badge alone is not enough. That is a different rule from the borough’s car parks, where the badge and a time clock are all you need.
Two further options nearby: the county’s own St George’s Road Car Park West charges £2.00 for an hour and £13.60 over six hours, with three free hours for blue badge holders, and free parking bays are covered by the zone 14 scheme above.
Penalty charge notices
Car park tickets are the borough’s, on-street tickets are the county’s, and the appeal routes are separate.
For a borough PCN, challenging within 14 days of the issue date keeps the 50 per cent discount alive while the challenge is considered. If the council upholds it, you get another 14 days from its reply letter to pay at the discounted rate. Challenge on day 15 or later and the full charge applies if you lose (view, pay or challenge a PCN).
The escalation from there, per the council’s parking FAQs:
- Unpaid after 28 days: a Notice to Owner is sent to the registered keeper.
- No payment or response within a further 28 days: a Charge Certificate is issued and the penalty rises by 50 per cent.
- Unpaid 14 days after that: the debt is registered with the Traffic Enforcement Centre and £10 is added. You then have 21 days.
- Still unpaid: enforcement agents.
The registered keeper is liable, not the driver. The council does not publish the penalty amount itself on any of its parking pages, so we have not quoted one. The reference on a borough PCN starts with “IC”. Pay on 0300 456 2774; the county’s payment line is 0333 121 0225.
Motorcycles
Solo motorcycles park free in the designated bays at six council car parks: Bath Parade, Bath Terrace, Chelt Walk, Rodney Road, Sherborne Place and St George’s Road. Park a motorcycle in a pay and display bay instead and the normal charge applies. There are free on-street motorcycle bays in Crescent Terrace and Regent Street (motorcycle parking).
More Cheltenham local information: bin collection days, council tax bands, roadworks and travel, train times to London, house prices.
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