Parking and Bus Lane Management

Managing parking on roads throughout the county is important to help local residents, businesses, and visitors find parking easily. This is particularly true in busy towns where maximum stays, permit schemes and parking charges are all used where appropriate to help manage parking (view all parking restriction maps for Gloucestershire County Council parking restrictions, including Resident Parking Zones, Limited Waiting bays and double yellow lines: www.gloucestershiretraffweb.co.uk).

The work that we do is focused entirely on managing parking across the county, we do not plan to make a surplus from either enforcement activities or charging for parking. If a surplus is made all such income contributes to the costs incurred in maintaining and managing the counties Highways network.

If you are a resident or business owner, you can apply for a resident or carer permit, business parking permit or waivers. (You can check where you need a permit to park on our permit parking zone maps)

With your help, we are looking at making some more changes to how we park on the roads in Gloucestershire, like introducing more resident parking schemes and pay and display. To read more about the current parking reviews running in Gloucestershire, and to get involved, see our current and recent parking related consultations on our new parking schemes page.

If you park where you shouldn't park, or without the right permit or pay and display ticket, you will receive a parking fine, or Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). There is additional information about our parking policy in Residents parking policy.

Currently Gloucester, Cheltenham and Cirencester use Pay and Display (see tariffs table and information below) and you can also pay by phone:

Cashless parking in GloucestershireOpens new window

(Search for the location and view the parking tariffs and parking durations)

For further information about parking related issues see our Parking FAQs.

On-street Pay & Display tariffs for Cheltenham

On-street Pay & Display tariffs for Cirencester and Gloucester

Pay & Display charges for on-street parking can be varied by notice under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

The primary reason for charging for parking is to manage the demand and support our transport policy objectives. The Council also needs to cover the costs of running the parking service.

The County Council’s policy for parking is set out in the Local Transport Plan. Effective management of on-street parking, in conjunction with provision of off-street parking is recognised as making a significant contribution to reducing congestion, whilst supporting access to residents, services and businesses. This approach aims to ensure that the balance between on and off-street charging is maintained.

Parking charges were last increased countywide in April 2019. It was agreed by Cabinet that as part of the county council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy that charges would increase in April 2020 by 3%. Due to COVID-19 this increase has been postponed and will now be implemented on 1^st September 2020.

We envisage that the changes in tariffs will encourage people to look at alternatives to parking on street in town centres. We will provide additional “Travelsmart” information on the council’s website to further encourage sustainable methods of transport.

Building on the success of the introduction of the “pay per minute” model, for parking up to 2 hours, in April 2019, we are now refining this approach to bring in a minimum charge of either 50p or £1 depending on location. This will streamline the charging structure allowing users greater flexibility and reducing the requirement for change (coins). Due to COVID-19 we are actively encouraging customers to use our cashless payment options, by using the MiPermit facility.

Table 1. Example of pay by minute

Any surplus generated by the operation of the parking service is used firstly in investment in the management of parking and the parking asset, and then for other improvements in traffic management, highway improvements and subsidised and concessionary transport. This is in accordance with the current legislation, the Traffic Management Act 2004.

Intend to Notice, including current charges and new charges

On site notice

Statement of Reason

Statement of Due Regard

Gloucestershire County Council On Street Parking Order 2017

For information on changes to permit and waiver charges please click here. Please select ‘Resident permits and visitor vouchers’ and see page 2 of the document called 'Information Leaflet - Gloucestershire County Council Permit Schemes - Including new permit and voucher charges for September 2020'.