Parking in Tunbridge Wells: £2.30 an Hour, £8 All Day

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council runs car parks in six towns and villages, and the price for the same two hours ranges from nothing to £3.50 depending on which one you pick. The council publishes each car park on its own page, so nobody sees the pattern. This page puts all of them side by side, with this year’s tariffs, the free ones, the traps, and the permit and blue badge rules, each linked back to the council’s own record.

The quick answer

In the town centre expect £2.30 for the first hour and £3.50 for two. All day is £8.00 at Crescent Road, Town Hall Yard and the top levels of Royal Victoria Place, and £11.00 at Great Hall, Meadow Road, Torrington, Linden Park Road and the Pantiles. Six car parks charge a £2.40 night rate from 6pm, so “free after six” is only true in some of them. Three car parks are free all the time: Brenchley, and High Street and Tanyard in Cranbrook. Charges run Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm in most of the borough. Bank holidays are charged in Tunbridge Wells and Southborough but free in Paddock Wood.

What every car park costs

Royal Tunbridge Wells

Crescent Road and Royal Victoria Place levels 8a and above also sell 48-hour stays at £16.00 and 72-hour stays at £24.00, by RingGo only. At Great Hall, Meadow Road, Torrington and Royal Victoria Place levels 1 to 8 the same stays are £22.00 and £33.00.

Southborough, Paddock Wood and the villages

The two Paddock Wood car parks give you the first hour free on a ticket from the machine, but only one free ticket in any three-hour period. Yew Tree Road in Southborough works the same way with two hours. So does John Street in the town, with 30 minutes.

Note the oddity at Paddock Wood: Commercial Road East is the short stay car park, yet its 24-hour rate of £8.70 is the highest all-day charge anywhere in the borough, more than the multi-storeys in the town centre.

Where and when it is actually free

Three council car parks never charge: Brenchley, and High Street and Tanyard in Cranbrook. The two Cranbrook car parks are maintained by Cranbrook and Sissinghurst Parish Council and enforced by the borough. High Street also has eight parent and baby bays and public toilets.

Everywhere else, charging hours are the same in most of the borough:

• Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm
• Sunday, 10am to 5pm

That leaves a free window on Sunday morning until 10am, and from 5pm on a Sunday evening, in every car park that does not run a night rate.

The £2.40 night rate, and who pays it

This is the trap. In most of the borough parking is genuinely free once the day rate ends. In six car parks it is not: they charge a flat £2.40 night rate from 6pm to 8am. Those six are Crescent Road, Great Hall, Meadow Road, Royal Victoria Place, Torrington and Town Hall Yard, which is to say every multi-storey in the town centre plus the Town Hall overflow.

Park at Camden Road, Beech Street, Linden Park Road, Little Mount Sion, John Street, Yew Tree Road or the Old Coach Park after 6pm and you pay nothing.

Crescent Road’s own page contradicts itself on when the night rate ends. Its tariff list says the £2.40 covers 6pm to 5am, while the charging-times box on the same page says 6pm to 8am. (Crescent Road car park)

Bank holidays

There is no single borough-wide rule, which is why nobody can answer this question quickly. The council states it car park by car park:

• Free on bank holidays: Commercial Road East and Commercial Road West in Paddock Wood, which are also free all day every Sunday
• Charged on bank holidays: the Pantiles, John Street, both Dunorlan Park car parks and the Sports Centre in Southborough, all of which say so explicitly
• Mount Pleasant Avenue is open on bank holidays
• The rest of the car parks do not say either way

Permits and season tickets

On-street residents’ permits

Charges are those in force from 1 October 2025.

Visitor vouchers cost £1.85 for a full day or £1.25 for four hours, and are capped at 50 full-day equivalents per rolling 12 months. They are available in every zone except Zone G, which currently has none. Zone G residents on the waiting list can instead buy a permit for Crescent Road car park at £275 a year. (Resident permit charges)

An NHS parking permit costs £130 a year.

Car park season tickets

A full-time commuter season ticket is £1,210 a year, or £100.83 a month by Direct Debit, at Beech Street, Camden Road, Crescent Road, Great Hall, Meadow Road, Mount Pleasant Avenue, the Pantiles, Royal Victoria Place levels 8a and above, and Torrington. Paying monthly costs the same over a year, so there is no penalty for spreading it.

The cheaper options:

• Linden Park Road and Commercial Road West: £925 full time
• John Street and Yew Tree Road: £465 full time
• Town Hall Yard: £1,340, the most expensive in the borough, plus a £50 admin fee on every new application
• Local employee tickets, where offered: £970 at Royal Victoria Place, £280 at John Street and Yew Tree Road, £200 at North Grove

Residents get their own rate: £645 a year at Crescent Road and Mount Pleasant Avenue, £575 at Warwick Road, £520 at Stone Street, £280 at High Brooms, John Street and Yew Tree Road, and £200 at North Grove. (Season ticket charges)

The council warns that development work around Mount Pleasant Avenue could cut the number of on-street permits it can offer there. No start date has been set, and it says the works could begin at short notice.

Three car parks the council’s own list leaves out

High Brooms, Stone Street and Warwick Road are all council car parks for residents’ season ticket holders only. All three have pages on the council’s site, and all three are missing from its Find a car park directory. Stone Street is actually two car parks close together, of 7 and 19 spaces, and one ticket covers both. Warwick Road has 20 spaces.

The same directory links to detail pages for Balcombes Hill in Goudhurst, Fowlers Park in Hawkhurst, and Jockey Lane and the Regal in Cranbrook that do not exist: all four return the council’s “Page not found”. All four are listed as long stay. We could not verify their tariffs, so this page does not state them.

Blue Badge parking

A Blue Badge goes a long way here. The council’s rules:

• Free parking in any public car park in the borough, with no time limit. You can use a normal bay, not just a marked one, and you do not need to register at a pay point.
• Up to three hours on a single or double yellow line, with the clock set and displayed alongside the badge.
• Free, with no time limit, in shared-use and resident-only bays.

You may not park in bus stops, car club bays, loading bays, police bays or taxi bays, or in an electric vehicle charging bay unless you are charging. A badge does not override a loading restriction and is not valid across a dropped kerb. (Blue Badge holders)

Reserved on-street Blue Badge bays are at Civic Way outside the Town Hall (about 8), the Pantiles Lower Walk opposite number 57 (4), Calverley Road outside number 90 (2), Newton Road outside number 6 (2) and Mount Pleasant Avenue opposite Lonsdale Gardens (1). The council says these counts are approximate and the bays are not individually marked.

The council’s own pages disagree on how many reserved bays the car parks have. Its Blue Badge page and its individual car park pages give different figures for four of them:

Blue Badges themselves are issued by Kent County Council, not the borough.

If you need a marked bay outside your own home, the borough handles applications on Kent’s behalf. You need a valid badge and the higher rate mobility component of DLA, the enhanced rate of PIP or an equivalent. The council consults everyone within 50 metres, and the bay is not reserved for you: any Blue Badge holder may use it. Bays are audited and can be removed. (Disabled parking bays)

Parking at the station

Tunbridge Wells station has no council car park of its own, but Torrington sits beside Station Approach and is where commuters go. It has 235 spaces over several levels, sells Southeastern season tickets, and splits its bays by colour:

• Red bays are reserved for Southeastern season and day ticket holders arriving before 10.30am, Monday to Friday
• White bays never accept a Southeastern ticket, at any time

Park in a white bay on a rail ticket and you are parked without a valid one. Torrington also runs the £2.40 night rate, so an overnight stay is not free. (Torrington car park)

Charging an electric car

• John Street: eight 11kW fast chargers operated by Believ
• Crescent Road: two bays on level 1, 7kW, no charge for the electricity, four hour maximum, parking charges still apply
• Yew Tree Road: four bays at the rear, 7kW, open only to drivers registered with chargeyourcar.org.uk
• Commercial Road East, Paddock Wood: rapid electric vehicle and taxi charging
• Pantiles: the council says charging is not yet available

If you get a ticket

You have 14 days to pay a penalty charge notice at half price, or 21 days if it was issued by CCTV and posted to you, and 28 days to pay in full. Paying gives up your right to appeal, so appeal first if you intend to. PCN numbers here begin TW or KU, and there can be a delay of up to 24 hours before a new one appears online. (Appeal a penalty charge notice)

Bus lane and bus gate tickets are no longer the borough’s. Kent County Council took over bus lane enforcement in Tunbridge Wells on 1 October 2025, and handles every PCN issued from that date. Tickets issued before then are still the borough council’s. (Bus Gate/Lane)

Two more things worth checking before you drive in

Height restrictions. Most of the multi-storeys are 6ft 6in, or 1.98 metres. The Pantiles is 2.10 metres, with no restriction on its external bays, and Crescent Road, Camden Road, Commercial Road West, Linden Park Road, North Grove and Yew Tree Road are all 1.98 metres. Town Hall Yard’s page states its restriction as “6‘6” (2.01m)”, which is not a correct conversion: 6ft 6in is 1.98 metres. If you are close to the limit, assume 1.98.

RingGo codes. Little Mount Sion’s page gives its location code as 28510 at the top and 28504 further down, and 28504 is Camden Road’s code. Use 28510, and check the code on the sign in the car park before you pay.

Also on this site

• Tunbridge Wells bin collection days: which bin, which week, and the bank holiday rule
• Tunbridge Wells council tax bands: the 2026/27 charge for every band in all 17 areas
• Tunbridge Wells roadworks and travel: current closures and diversions

Sources

All figures were taken from Tunbridge Wells Borough Council’s own pages on 2 September 2026.

• Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Find a car park and the individual pages for Crescent Road, Royal Victoria Place, Great Hall, Meadow Road, Torrington, Town Hall Yard, Linden Park Road, Pantiles, Little Mount Sion, Mount Pleasant Avenue, Beech Street, Camden Road, John Street, The Old Coach Park, Dunorlan Park Pembury Road, Dunorlan Park Halls Hole Road, Yew Tree Road, Tunbridge Wells Sports Centre, Commercial Road East, Commercial Road West, High Street Cranbrook, Tanyard, North Grove, Brenchley, High Brooms, Stone Street and Warwick Road
• Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Resident permit charges and Season ticket charges, both stated as in force from 1 October 2025
• Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Blue Badge holders, Disabled parking bays, Appeal a penalty charge notice, Pay a penalty charge notice and Bus Gate/Lane