Stevenage parking: paper tickets to go, new Eastgate bays

Stevenage Borough Council wants to scrap paper tickets on the town centre’s on-street parking bays and switch to machines that read your number plate. It also wants to create a new parking place in Eastgate, close to Market Place. The tariff would not change.

Updated 6 October: the council made this order on 25 September and it comes into force on Monday 19 October 2026, with the tariff unchanged. The Old Town orders described below were made the same day. Details: Stevenage parking changes from 19 October.

Formal objections and comments in support close on 18 September 2026.

The proposal is set out in a draft order, The Borough of Stevenage (Town Centre, Stevenage) (On Street Pay-By-Phone and Pay-By-Plate Parking Places) Order 2026, published on the council’s proposed traffic orders page and advertised on the Public Notice Portal on 27 August. The council is acting as agent for Hertfordshire County Council, and has consulted the Chief Officer of Police.

What would actually change

Two things, and only two.

One new place to park. The order would designate bays in Eastgate on the east side, “opposite the rear of properties in Queensway between the garage block and the bend in the road”. The council says this would let drivers park close to Market Place. The schedule puts it at a 17 metre length starting 41 metres north of the northern kerb line of Southgate, with cars standing perpendicular to the carriageway. The draft does not say how many bays that makes.

The end of the paper ticket. The bays already in use in Danestrete, Southgate, Swingate, The Quadrant and Westgate would be re-regulated so you can pay without displaying a ticket. You register the vehicle’s registration mark at the machine or through an app, and a civil enforcement officer checks it on a hand-held device.

The council’s statement of reasons is blunt about why. The payment equipment “is now aging, and would benefit from replacement”. Drivers would not have to walk back to the car, and “the ticket cannot slip off the dashboard”. It also says the technology “may” allow reminders when your paid time is running out.

The ten bays in the draft order

Schedule Two of the draft lists ten parking places. All are chargeable Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm:

• Eastgate, east side, 17m (the new one)
• Danestrete, east side, 33m
• Southgate, north side, 22.5m, east of Danestrete
• Southgate, north side, 38m, west of St George’s Way
• Southgate, south side, 18m, east of Danestrete
• Swingate, north side, 32m
• The Quadrant, southern radius of the central island, 24m
• The Quadrant, eastern side of the central island, 9m
• The Quadrant, western side of the western carriageway, 45m
• Westgate, eastern side of the central island

One thing does not line up. The council’s own pay and display page, which we checked on 1 September, lists Marshgate among the town centre streets with on-street pay and display. Marshgate is not one of the ten places named in the draft order. We have not been able to establish from the published documents whether that is deliberate.

The price is not going up

The seven prices in the draft order are the same seven prices the council publishes today:

One small change is buried in the schedule. The draft order’s charging table is headed “Monday to Saturday 8am to 8pm, excluding bank holidays and public holidays”. So on-street would be free on a bank holiday. That is the opposite of the council’s off-street car parks, where normal charges apply on bank holidays.

The details most people will miss

• Your car has to fit. A parking place under this order is for vehicles no more than 2.3 metres high and 5.25 metres long. Larger vans and some big estates and pickups are outside the definition.
• Blue badge holders pay nothing, with no time limit, provided the badge is displayed in the relevant position.
• Loading gets 20 minutes, or longer if a police officer or civil enforcement officer approves it.
• After a penalty charge notice is issued, the order says a vehicle may stay no more than a further hour.
• No refunds are payable, though the council may give one at its discretion.
• The council can suspend a bay for building work, a funeral or a wedding, or when a street is likely to be “thronged or obstructed”.

The order would also revoke two existing orders in full: the 2016 town centre pay and display order and its 2023 amendment. Parts of the Borough of Stevenage (Control of Parking) (Consolidation) Order 2017 would be revoked as far as this order affects them.

What it means for you

If you park on the street in Stevenage town centre, the practical change is that you will key in your registration rather than come back to the car with a ticket. Get the plate wrong and there is nothing on the dashboard to show you paid, so the officer’s hand-held device is what decides. The order is explicit: if the registration and a valid session do not appear on that device, “the initial charge shall be deemed not to have been paid”.

Nothing changes in the multi-storeys or the other council car parks, which are covered by separate orders. Our Stevenage roadworks and travel page has the current tariff for every council car park, the Old Town’s free bays and the season pass prices.

To object or to support, write with your grounds and your name and full address to tro@stevenage.gov.uk, or to Stevenage Borough Council, Daneshill House, Danestrete, Stevenage, SG1 1HN, by 18 September 2026. Comments in support are accepted in the same window. The full documents can be inspected at Daneshill House during office hours, or read online. The parking team’s general enquiries number is 01438 242 242.

A second parking shake-up is already waiting

The town centre order is not the only one in the pipeline. Between 16 July and 7 August the council consulted on a set of five orders covering the southern end of the Old Town High Street, Gates Way and Ditchmore Lane. Those proposals would:

• create two-hour bays, with a resident permit exception, on the High Street between Gates Way and Trinity Road
• put double yellow lines along the whole of Gates Way
• add a loading bay on the western side of the High Street outside The Old Bank
• add a disabled bay near the Millennium Gardens, limited to two hours with no return within three
• allow paid stays of three hours and over in Ditchmore Lane, where the first two hours would stay free

Resident permits would cost £68 a year for a first vehicle, or £62 for a virtual permit, with a second vehicle at £94 and £88. A set of 20 visitor vouchers would be £20 on paper or £15 virtual, and caring visitor permits would be free. The council says the requests behind it came from residents, citing long-stay parking, congestion and reduced access to local amenities including the GP surgery.

That consultation has closed and the council has not published a decision.

Sources

• Stevenage Borough Council, Proposed Traffic Orders, page dated 28 August 2026, for both sets of proposals and every document below.
• Notice of Proposal, Town Centre (pdf), dated 27 August 2026, for the effect of the order, the tariff and the objection deadline.
• The draft order (pdf), for Schedule One and Schedule Two, the vehicle size limits, the loading exception, the penalty charge provisions and the revocations.
• Statement of Reasons, Town Centre (pdf), for the council’s case.
• The same notice on the Public Notice Portal, published 27 August 2026 in the Stevenage Comet.
• Stevenage Borough Council, Pay and Display Parking, checked 1 September 2026, for the tariff and streets currently in use.
• Notice of Proposal, Ditchmore Lane and Gates Way, High Street (pdf), dated 16 July 2026, for the Old Town proposals and permit prices.