Every council car park gives 30 minutes free, but you still need a ticket. All-day parking runs £5.50 to £17. On-street is free Sundays, car parks are not.

Two numbers decide what parking in Hereford costs you. Thirty minutes is free in every council car park and on-street bay, county-wide, since 23 April 2026. And all-day parking splits sharply: £5.50 at Merton Meadow and St Martins, £8.40 at most central car parks, £17 at the four dearest.

Getting the free half hour wrong is the expensive part. You must still take a ticket from the machine, and you cannot claim it through the app.

This page lists the tariffs for every council car park in Hereford, the free-parking traps, permit and season ticket prices, and what the station charges. All figures are from Herefordshire Council’s own car park pages, checked on 30 August 2026.

Pop and Shop: free, but only if you take a ticket

The council’s Pop and Shop scheme gives one free 30 minute session per vehicle per day in all its pay and display car parks and on-street bays. The rules on the council’s Pop and Shop page are strict:

  • You must enter your registration at the machine and press the green button.
  • You must display the ticket, even though you have paid nothing.
  • It cannot be claimed on the JustPark app. Machine only.
  • It cannot be used to top up a session you have already paid for.
  • One session per vehicle per day, not per car park.

Machines across the county now have registration keypads, which is what makes the one-a-day limit enforceable. No ticket means you are liable for a penalty like anyone else.

What the Hereford car parks charge

Herefordshire runs about 4,374 off-street spaces and an estimated 1,600 controlled on-street spaces. In Hereford itself the car parks fall into three tariff bands.

Herefordshire Council car parks in Hereford, weekday and all-day tariffs, spaces and postcodes, from each car park's page on herefordshire.gov.uk, checked 30 August 2026
Car parkPostcodeSpaces1 hourAll day
Merton MeadowHR4 9HENot published£1.10£5.50
St MartinsHR2 7RQ116£1.10£5.50
St Martins 2, overflowHR2 7RQ93£1.10£5.50
Garrick multi-storeyHR4 9HG399£1.70£8.40
Bus StationHR1 2BL99£1.70£8.40
Bath StreetHR1 2HQ76£1.70£8.40
Venns CloseHR1 2HH75£1.70£8.40
Wye StreetHR2 7RB74£1.70£8.40
GreyfriarsHR4 0BE69£1.70£8.40
Union WalkHR1 2EP27£1.70£8.40
Town Hall, weekends onlyHR1 2LU47£1.70£8.80
Gaol StreetHR1 2HU130£1.90£17
Maylord OrchardsHR1 2DT208£1.90£17
West StreetHR4 0BX73£1.90£17
Shirehall, weekends onlyHR1 2PG61£1.90£17

All of these charge Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm, including bank holidays, and again on Sunday 8am to 8pm at a slightly different rate. The £17 sites reach that figure by stepping up roughly £2 an hour past four hours, so a six hour stay at Gaol Street is £11.60 and eight hours is £15.60.

Three practical points:

  • Merton Meadow and the two St Martins car parks are less than a third the price of Gaol Street for a full day. Both are a walk from the centre rather than in it.
  • Garrick has a 2.2 metre height limit and Maylord Orchards, which is underground, has a 1.98 metre limit. Anything roof-boxed or van-shaped will not fit either.
  • Coaches and HGVs park on the north section of Merton Meadow only, at £10 for 24 hours.

The Maylord Orchards shutter

Maylord Orchards is underground and closes with a shutter outside opening hours. The council’s own page warns it could charge £15 to release a vehicle left inside. It also notes the shopping centre doors do not open until 10.30am on Sundays, and that the car park may close earlier to match reduced centre hours. Read the signs on the day.

The two weekend-only car parks

Shirehall and Town Hall are private car parks during the week. Shirehall’s page lists Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday tariffs only; Town Hall’s lists Saturday and Sunday and calls itself a weekend only car park. If you plan a Tuesday trip around either, you cannot use them.

On-street: free on Sundays, charged on bank holidays

Hereford has pay and display bays on nine city centre streets. They cost £2.40 for an hour and £4.80 for two, with a two hour maximum and no return within two hours.

Restrictions run 8am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday, including bank holidays, and the bays are free on Sundays. That is the opposite of the car parks, which do charge on Sundays. It is the easiest mistake to make here.

The streets, from the council’s on-street pay and display page:

  • Aubrey Street
  • Bridge Street
  • Broad Street
  • Castle Street and St Ethelbert Street
  • Gaol Street
  • Harrison Street
  • King Street
  • St John Street
  • St Owen’s Street

The charges and the two hour limit do not apply to Blue Badge holders.

Blue Badge parking

Badge holders get three hours free in every council pay and display car park, provided the badge and clock are displayed properly. Beyond three hours you buy a ticket for the extra time, but you still cannot exceed the car park’s maximum stay.

Badge holders may use any space marked for cars, not only the marked disabled bays. The council’s own count of dedicated disabled bays in the city’s biggest car parks:

  • Garrick multi-storey: 12
  • Maylord Orchards: 9
  • St Martins: 8
  • Gaol Street: 4
  • Bus Station, Shirehall, Town Hall, Wye Street: 2 each
  • Bath Street, Union Walk, Venns Close: 1 each
  • Greyfriars, West Street and St Martins 2: none

Misusing a badge carries a fine of up to £1,000 and confiscation, per the council’s Blue Badge parking page.

Resident permits: £30, and £75 for a third

Residents’ parking schemes run in Bromyard, Colwall, Hereford, Ledbury, Leominster and Ross-on-Wye. Permits are only available to people living inside a scheme zone.

Herefordshire Council residents' parking permit charges, from the apply for a resident parking permit page, checked 30 August 2026
PermitCost a year
Vehicle permit£30
Visitor permit, one per property£30
Third permit, where the zone allows£75
Fourth and fifth permits, each£100
Changing the registration on a permit£10

Two rules worth reading before you renew. The council does not send reminder letters, and it will not let you park in the zone while you wait for a permit to arrive, so it asks for at least two weeks. And a lost visitor permit is not reissued; you wait for it to expire and apply again.

Season tickets

Season tickets are bought through JustPark, which adds its own fee: £1.68 monthly, £2.40 quarterly, £3.84 annually. They do not guarantee a space.

  • £141 a month, £370 a quarter, £1,373 a year at Bath Street, Bus Station, Garrick, Greyfriars, Union Walk, Venns Close and Wye Street.
  • £88 a month, £231 a quarter, £858 a year at Merton Meadow and both St Martins car parks.
  • £99 a year, or £38.50 a quarter, for an off peak ticket valid 5pm to 9am. That one works in every Herefordshire council car park.

Gaol Street, Maylord Orchards, West Street and Shirehall sell the off peak ticket but no standard season ticket. Full details are on the car park season tickets page.

The council’s cashless provider changed from RingGo to JustPark on 10 January 2025. Existing RingGo season tickets stay valid until they expire.

Station parking

Hereford station car park has 135 spaces and 11 accessible spaces, is open 24 hours, has CCTV and is run by APCOA. Its published tariff is £8.30 a day, £34.30 a week, £112 a month and £1,144 a year. Blue Badge holders get 20 minutes free in a blue badge bay, then the standard tariff applies, and there are designated 20 minute pick-up and drop-off bays.

At £8.30 the station is dearer than a full day at Merton Meadow and cheaper than Gaol Street. Elsewhere in the county:

  • Leominster station: 10 spaces, free, run by Transport for Wales.
  • Ledbury station: 38 spaces, 2 accessible, charged. National Rail does not publish the tariff.

Space counts and the free-parking flags come from the National Rail station pages; the Hereford tariff is from APCOA’s own page for the site.

Penalty charges

A Herefordshire penalty charge notice is £70 or £50, depending on the contravention, and the amount is printed on the notice. Pay within 14 days and half is accepted as settlement. The full amount is due within 28 days.

The council does not accept instalments, on the grounds that the statutory 28 day window is too short to administer them. Details, and how to challenge, are on the pay a parking fine page. Note the council’s own warning that a PCN may take up to 48 hours to appear on its payment system.