Fareham's outer car parks are free on Sundays, the town centre ones are not, and the coast charges daily. Full tariffs, permits, blue badge rules and PCN costs.

Fareham’s parking is cheap by south coast standards and the borough runs a lot of it: over 1,400 council spaces serve the town centre alone, on top of car parks at Stubbington, Titchfield, Warsash, Portchester, Sarisbury and Park Gate. The catch is that the rules change three times as you move from the middle of town to the edge of it to the shore, and the place people get caught is Sunday.

Every tariff below comes from Fareham Borough Council’s own town centre parking and coastal parking pages, read on 15 August 2026.

What an hour costs, and where

Tier Car parks 1 hour 2 hours 4 hours Then
Premium Market Quay £1.50 £3.00 £6.00 £1.50 per hour
Inner Fareham Shopping Centre multi-storey, Civic Way, Ferneham Hall, Palmerston Avenue and other inner car parks £1.00 £2.00 £4.00 £1.00 per hour
Outer Bath Lane, Holy Trinity, Lysses, Malthouse Lane, Osborn Road West, Trinity Street, Youth Centre £0.70 £1.40 £2.80 £3.50 for five hours or more
Coastal Ten car parks from Warsash to Portchester £1.10 £2.20 £4.40 £1.10 per hour, 12 hour maximum
Cost of four hours parking in Fareham by car park tier Bar chart of the cost of a four hour stay in Fareham car parks. Outer car parks 2 pounds 80. Inner car parks 4 pounds. Coastal car parks 4 pounds 40. Market Quay premium 6 pounds. On Sundays and bank holidays the outer car parks are free while the others still charge. Four hours parked in Fareham, by tier Weekday rate. On Sundays and bank holidays only the outer car parks drop to nothing. Outer £2.80 Inner £4.00 Coastal £4.40 Market Quay £6.00 Source: Fareham Borough Council, town centre and coastal parking tariffs, August 2026 Graphic by Fareham News

Charges in the town centre apply Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm, and Sundays and bank holidays 10.30am to 4pm. After 6pm every town centre car park is free. There is no charge at all on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday. Maximum stay is 24 hours in the premium and outer car parks.

The free parking, and the traps in it

Free after 6pm, everywhere in town. That is the simplest saving in Fareham and it is genuinely free, not a reduced evening tariff.

Sunday is only free in the outer car parks. The council’s tariff page is unambiguous: outer car parks are “Sundays & Bank Holidays free”, while the premium and inner ones charge £1.50 and £1.00 an hour respectively on exactly those days. So a Sunday in Market Quay costs money and a Sunday two minutes further out at Lysses or Trinity Street does not. This is the single most expensive assumption to get wrong here.

The coast charges every day. All ten coastal car parks charge £1.10 an hour between 10am and 6pm with no Sunday or bank holiday exemption: Monks Hill, Hove-To, Salterns Road, Meon Shore, Swanwick Shore Road, Passage Lane, Shore Road, Portchester Castle Small, Portchester Castle Large and Wicor Recreation. Wicor is the odd one out, with a weekend day rate of £2.20 for four hours or £4.40 for eight.

Two coastal car parks cap you at four hours in summer. Between 1 April and 30 September, Swanwick Shore Road and Shore Road have a four hour maximum stay with no return within four hours. That runs to the end of September, so it still applies now.

The multi-storey closes. Fareham Shopping Centre’s multi-storey is open Monday to Saturday 7.30am to 6.30pm and Sunday 9am to 4.30pm, and closes overnight. Parking is free after 6pm there, but you have half an hour to use it before the barrier shuts.

Where the spaces actually are

The three car parks beside Fareham Live reopened on 6 September 2024 after the old Osborn Road multi-storey was demolished. The replacement surface car park has 136 spaces sized for modern cars, plus electric vehicle charge points, and the three together provide 26 accessible bays. The council counted over 600 spaces within easy walking distance of the venue in its announcement at the time.

The council’s own 2023 transparency return counted 4,180 spaces across the borough with 167 disabled bays and 21 motorcycle bays. That total is now out of date, because it still includes the 818-space Osborn Road multi-storey, which has gone. The per-car-park counts for everywhere still standing are the best public figures available: Market Quay 281, Lysses 279, the Leisure Centre on Park Lane 279, Portchester Precinct 265, Salterns 133, Passage Lane 111, Meon Shore 100, Monks Hill 100, Titchfield Community Centre 98, Stubbington Community Centre 87, Holly Hill 90 and Broadcut 88.

Motorcycles park free in the designated motorcycle bays at Holy Trinity, Trinity Street, Malthouse Lane, Market Quay, Youth Centre, Ferneham Hall, Civic Way South and Lysses in town, and at Castle Large, Monks Hill, Salterns Road, Hove-To, Shore Road, Passage Lane and Swanwick Shore on the coast.

Paying

All council car parks take cash and card. PayByPhone works at Lysses, Youth Centre, Osborn Road West, Palmerston Avenue, Ferneham Hall, Civic Way, Trinity Street, Malthouse Lane, Holy Trinity and Bath Lane, using the location number shown on the pay machine.

Market Quay is pay on foot: take a ticket at the barrier, pay at the machine in the pedestrian entrance before you walk back to the car, then use the ticket at the exit. You cannot pay at the exit barrier. A lost ticket is charged at the daily rate for the charging hours.

Blue badge parking, and the exception that catches residents

Blue badge holders park free in every pay and display car park in the borough, including all the coastal ones, with the badge displayed and the serial number and expiry date visible.

The exception matters. The two pay on foot car parks, Fareham Shopping Centre multi-storey and Market Quay, are only free to blue badge holders who live in the borough and have applied in advance. You send the council the application form with both sides of the badge and proof of address dated within the last three months; your registration then goes on the ANPR system and the barriers lift automatically. Allow up to 48 hours for the plate to be added, and expect to reapply when the badge expires. Everyone else, including blue badge holders from outside Fareham, pays the normal charge in those two car parks.

Advisory disabled bays on the street are not the borough’s job. Hampshire County Council provides those. Shopmobility, inside Fareham Shopping Centre opposite Milletts, lends mobility equipment for getting round the town centre.

Permits, and who issues which

This is the part Fareham genuinely splits between two councils, and it wastes a lot of people’s time.

The borough issues car park permits only. A town centre permit covers Bath Lane, Holy Trinity, Lysses, Malthouse Lane, Osborn Road West, Trinity Street and the Youth Centre. Full day prices run from £120 a year for one day a week to £540 a year for all week; part day permits, capped at five hours a day, run from £80 to £320 a year. Shorter terms are available monthly, quarterly and half yearly, and there is a 20% discount on eight or more season tickets bought together. Permits are issued within seven days.

Coastal permits cost £150 a year, or £100 for Fareham residents. They are tied to one vehicle, non-refundable, and cost £10 to replace if lost or damaged, though a change of registration is free if you hand the old one back. They cover all ten coastal car parks for the normal 12 or four hour maximum, and allow up to 14 consecutive days including overnight at Hove-To and Passage Lane only. Sleeping in the vehicle is not permitted.

Hampshire County Council handles everything on the street: resident parking permits, visitor permits, trader dispensations, enforcement of on-street bays and advisory disabled bays. The number is 0345 520 7007 and the email is parking.services@hants.gov.uk. Fareham Borough Council will not issue you a resident permit.

If you get a ticket

Fareham has adopted the Band 2 penalty scale, set out in its parking enforcement policy:

  • Higher level contraventions: £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days
  • Lower level contraventions: £50, reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days

You get 14 days from service to pay at the discount or to challenge. If you challenge and the challenge is rejected, the council holds the discount open for a further 14 days from the date of the rejection letter, which is worth knowing before you decide whether to argue. Unpaid after 28 days and a Notice to Owner follows, then a 50% increase and a charge certificate. Pay or challenge through the council’s PCN page.

Parking at the station

Fareham station’s car park is not a council car park. Station Approach is privately operated, as the tariff board on site makes clear, so the borough’s tariffs, its free-after-6pm rule and its blue badge concessions do not apply and council permits are not valid. National Rail lists 154 parking spaces and seven accessible spaces at Fareham station, which is managed by South Western Railway. Prices there change independently of the council’s, so check the board rather than assuming town centre rates. This page does not quote them.

If you want a council tariff near the station, Lysses on Wallington Way is an outer car park at £3.50 for five hours or more, and free on Sundays.

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