Parking in Staines: £1.40 an Hour, and 4 Car Parks Free

Spelthorne Borough Council changed what it charges to park in Staines-upon-Thames on Tuesday 8 September 2026. The new tariffs are in force. The council’s own car park pages have caught up in most cases, and not in all of them, which is the thing to know before you feed a machine.

This page carries the current prices and the old ones for comparison, plus the tariffs at the recreation ground car parks in Sunbury, Shepperton and Laleham, the season ticket prices, and the rules that catch people out here. Rechecked against the council’s made Order and every one of its car park pages on 10 September 2026.

What it costs now

The council made the Off-Street Parking Places Amendment Order on 13 August and published the new tariffs in a public notice. It came into operation on 8 September. Representations had to be in by 4 September, and that window has closed.

Short stay covers four car parks the notice calls Elmsleigh Road Pay and Display, the Elmsleigh Road Multi Storey, Elmsleigh Road Surface and Riverside Surface. All four move to one tariff:

The five hour price is the one that moved: up £1, or 16.7%. Three hours came down 20p, and by £1.20 at Elmsleigh Road, which had been charging £4.60 for three hours while the other two showed £3.60 for the same stay. Anything over five hours is now a flat £12 across all four.

The council’s own naming never lined up between documents. The public notice lists three separate Elmsleigh entries; the website has pages for “Elmsleigh Road car park” and “Elmsleigh Surface car park” and none for the multi storey. The price is now the same in all of them, so the mismatch has stopped mattering. The Elmsleigh Surface, Elmsleigh Road and Riverside Surface pages were all updated on 8 September and show the figures above.

Long stay covers Bridge Street and Kingston Road:

Four hours in a long stay car park went up 70p, or 15.6%, the biggest single rise in either table.

Bridge Street’s own page has not been updated. Kingston Road’s was, on 8 September, and it prints the right-hand column above. The Bridge Street page was last modified on 12 August 2026 and on 10 September it still showed the left-hand column, including £8 for over five hours where the Order says £9. Both car parks are on the same tariff in the Order. Read the board at the machine rather than either page.

The Order also introduces a rule with no price attached: no return within the same charging period. The council’s own notice of the changes says it is there “to avoid misuse of lower cost initial tariff points”, meaning you can no longer drive out and back in to buy a second cheap first hour.

The arithmetic worth knowing

Long stay is now dearer than short stay for a short visit and cheaper for a long one. One to four hours costs more at Bridge Street or Kingston Road than at Elmsleigh or Riverside. Past five hours it costs £9 instead of £12, a £3 saving on a full day.

The crossover is at five hours: £7 short stay, £6 long stay.

Four car parks stopped charging on the same day

Four car parks left the chargeable schedule on 8 September and became free, with an 11 hour maximum stay. None of them is in Staines-upon-Thames. The council’s own Parking Order schedules place them as:

• Abbey Drive, Laleham Park, Laleham, about two miles south of Staines
• Dumsey Meadow, Shepperton, by Chertsey Bridge, about three miles away
• the Old Bathing Station, Fordbridge Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, about four and a half miles
• Green Street, Sunbury-on-Thames, about the same

That was a change from what was consulted on. The council’s December 2025 notice of proposals had them going free with a 30 minute limit. We covered how that changed in our report on the Order.

The council’s website has not caught up, and it is worth knowing before you pay. On 10 September:

• Abbey Drive’s page had been deleted. It returns a 404 and no Abbey Drive path appears in the council’s own sitemap.
• Dumsey Meadow, the Old Bathing Station and Sunbury Park and Green Street were all still live, all last modified 11 August 2026, and all three still published charges of first hour free, £2 up to two hours and £4 beyond.
• All four had been taken off the car park list on the council’s parking, travel and roads page, which was itself updated on 9 September.

The Order is unambiguous and the council has published nothing withdrawing it. But the council has also published nothing announcing that the four are free, so the signs at the car park are the thing to read. More on that in our report on the two-day gap.

The Staines car parks, one by one

Sizes, where the council gives them: Elmsleigh Surface 324 spaces plus 23 disabled bays and 8 parent and child bays, Kingston Road 196 plus 6 disabled bays, Riverside Surface 81 plus five disabled and five parent and child, and Elmsleigh Road just 13 plus 6 disabled and 13 contract bays.

Elmsleigh Surface and Elmsleigh Road are barrier controlled and take no phone payment at all. Cash or card at the machine only. Every other council car park in the borough accepts the cashless app.

The Bridge Street page gives its opening hours as Monday to Saturday, then prints a Sunday £2 all-day rate underneath. The Order treats Sunday as a charging day there, so plan on paying.

Outside Staines: an hour free, then £2

The recreation ground and village car parks work on a different and simpler tariff, and most of them give the first hour free:

All are open 7am to 7pm daily except Lammas and Laleham Park, which have their own hours in the table above. Note the two riverside ones charge 50p for the first hour where the others give it free.

A copy-and-paste error to be aware of: the council’s Thames Street page states the opening hours of “the Orchard Meadow car park”. Both are 7am to 7pm, so the times are right even though the name is wrong.

Free parking, and the traps

There is no council car park in Staines town centre that is free at any time of day. What there is:

• The first hour free at every village and recreation ground car park listed above, except Lammas and Laleham Park.
• Four car parks fully free since 8 September, with an 11 hour limit: Abbey Drive at Laleham, Dumsey Meadow at Shepperton, and the Old Bathing Station and Green Street at Sunbury. All four are outside Staines.
• Motorcycles free, but the made Order clarifies this applies only in designated motorcycle bays. Park a bike in a car bay and it is chargeable.

The traps:

• Sunday is a charging day. The six town-centre Staines car parks charge £2 all day on a Sunday between 6am and midnight. This is not obvious from the town, and it is unchanged by the new Order.
• Evenings are a charging period. 7pm to midnight is £2, not free.
• A Blue Badge does not park you free. Every Spelthorne car park page says the same sentence: “There is a parking charge for Blue Badge holders in our car parks.” Disabled bays are provided in all of them, but the charge still applies.
• A Surrey resident permit is no use here. Surrey County Council states plainly that none of its permits, including operational ones, “are valid for use in any district or borough council car parks”.

Season tickets, and the odd rail rate

Two tiers, from the council’s car park pages:

The Kingston Road page also lists a separate rate for railway season ticket holders, and it is dearer than the ordinary one: £275 for three months and £900 for twelve, against £250 and £850. On the council’s published figures a rail commuter pays £50 a year more for the same car park than a shopper does. The council does not explain why.

Parking at Staines station

Staines station has its own car park, and it is small. South Western Railway lists it at 32 spaces, with no CCTV:

• Peak: £11.00
• Off peak: £5.50
• Per hour: £2.50

Blue Badge holders park free there if they register with SWR first, which is the opposite of the rule in the council’s car parks.

With 32 spaces against Kingston Road’s 196, the council car park roughly 200 metres up the road does most of the commuter work. A full day there now costs £9, against £11 peak at the station.

On-street parking is Surrey’s job, not Spelthorne’s

This is the split that sends most people to the wrong website. Since 1 April 2023 Spelthorne has not been responsible for on-street parking at all. Payments, permits, bay suspensions and enforcement all sit with Surrey County Council, under a seven-year contract with Marston Holdings. Spelthorne kept only its own off-street car parks. The council says so on its own page, but it is not the page you land on if you search for a resident permit.

Surrey’s permit prices:

• Resident permit: £88 for the first at an address, £108 for the second, £138 for a third and any after that
• Resident visitor permit: £2 for an all-day one, capped at 150 a year per household, or £1 for a two-hour one, capped at 250 a year
• Childcare permit: £108
• Carers and operational permits: free
• Changing the vehicle on a resident permit: £15, unless it is a temporary swap such as a courtesy car, which is free for up to two weeks

Apply through Surrey’s permit site. It is run for the county by NSL on 0330 175 5930.

Blue badges

Surrey County Council issues Blue Badges for Surrey residents. A badge costs £10 and normally runs for three years. Apply or renew through Surrey.

Surrey’s own guidance is blunt about the limit: a Blue Badge “applies only to on-street parking, it does not necessarily provide free parking in car parks”. In Spelthorne it definitely does not. Misusing a badge is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to £1,000 and cancellation of the badge.

If you get a ticket

A Spelthorne penalty charge notice is £50 or £70 depending on the contravention, halved to £25 or £35 if you pay within 14 days. You also have 14 days to challenge it, and if the challenge fails you get a fresh 14 days at the reduced rate from the date of the refusal. Details and payment are on the council’s PCN page.

An on-street ticket is not a Spelthorne ticket. Those go to Surrey County Council.

More local information

• Staines bin collection days
• Staines council tax bands 2026/27
• Roadworks and travel
• Train times to London