Parking in Andover: Free After 4pm and All Day Sunday

Andover’s parking is cheap and the rules are generous, but nobody tells you that. The council’s car park page opens with a wall of text about coin validators. The useful facts are all in there, and they are these: charges run for seven and a half hours a day, five and a half days a week, and one long-stay car park gives you two hours for nothing.

The quick answer

• Charges apply 8.30am to 4.00pm only, and not at all on Sundays or public holidays.
• Free after 4pm every day until 8.30am the next morning.
• Free all day Sunday, in every council car park.
• Free on Monday 31 August 2026, the summer bank holiday.
• Shepherds Spring Lane: the first two hours are free, and three hours costs £1.20.
• All day is £4.40 in a long stay car park, £5.90 in a short or medium stay one.
• Blue badge holders park free, all day in the long and medium stay car parks.

Who runs what

This matters, because half the questions people ask go to the wrong council.

Test Valley Borough Council runs the car parks. Hampshire County Council runs everything on the street, including double yellow lines, residents’ permit schemes and enforcement. The borough handed all of it over and no longer administers on-street resident permits at all. County parking enquiries go to 0300 555 1388.

There is one useful consequence. Hampshire runs on-street pay and display in Basingstoke, Eastleigh, Fareham, Hart, Rushmoor, Winchester and four other places, but not in Test Valley. There is no on-street pay and display in Andover. Where you can legally park on the street here, it is free.

What it costs

Charges apply between 8.30am and 4.00pm daily, except on Sundays and recognised public holidays. There are 15 council car parks in Andover.

Short and medium stay: £5.90 all day

Those rates apply at Black Swan Yard, Town Mills, Borden Gates, Anton Mill Road short stay, George Yard, the Chantry Centre multi-storey, Marlborough Street, South Street, the Leisure Centre, Simplyhealth and West Street.

Maximum stays vary and are not obvious. Black Swan Yard, Town Mills and Borden Gates are two hours. Anton Mill Road short stay is three. George Yard is two hours on the west side and all day on the east. The Chantry Centre is two hours on levels 1A and 2, and all day on 2A and above.

Long stay: £4.40 all day

Four car parks: Shepherds Spring Lane, Winchester Road, Anton Mill Road long stay and The Acre.

All of the above is from the council’s own Andover car parks page, last updated 19 March 2026.

The free parking, and the traps

After 4pm. Charging stops at 4pm and does not resume until 8.30am. If you buy a ticket after the charging period ends, the machine issues one for the next charging day, so an evening ticket covers you in the morning too.

Sundays and public holidays. No charge at all, in any car park. That includes Monday 31 August 2026.

Shepherds Spring Lane. A long stay car park where the council lists a special rate: up to two hours free, up to three hours £1.20. It is the only free short stay in town and it is a five minute walk from the Leisure Centre and The Lights.

Use the ticket machine for that free option, not the app. The council’s notice of proposals for a new Off Street Parking Places Order, advertised on 10 August 2026, records that at Shepherds Spring Lane “the two-hour free option is no longer available via RingGo but remains available via Pay & Display ticket”. The same applies to the four-hour free option at Romsey Rapids.

The traps are about access rather than price:

• Shepherds Spring Lane is locked overnight. Since Monday 30 March 2026 the lower vehicle barrier closes at 10pm and opens at 6.30am. Leave a car there after 10pm and you are not getting it back until morning.
• The Chantry Centre is locked too, outside 7.00am to 11.00pm Monday to Saturday and 9.00am to 5.00pm on Sundays and bank holidays. Every other Andover car park has unrestricted access.
• Simplyhealth is only sometimes public. It is open to the public Monday to Friday evenings from 5pm to 6.30am and at weekends, and it is pay and display on Saturdays from 8.30am to 4pm. Do not cut through the adjacent staff car park, which is private.

Blue badge

Blue badge holders park free in council car parks in Andover, in any general bay rather than just the marked disabled ones. Display the badge with the expiry date face up, and the blue clock where a time limit applies. Time limits still apply, and they differ by car park:

• All day: Chantry Centre levels 2A and above, George Yard, Marlborough Street, South Street, the Leisure Centre, Shepherds Spring Lane, Winchester Road, Anton Mill Road long stay, The Acre, and Simplyhealth during its public hours.
• Three hours: Black Swan Yard, Town Mill, Borden Gates, Anton Mill Road short stay and Chantry Centre levels 1A and 2.
• Two hours: the disabled-only bays on the High Street, SP10 1LJ.

You cannot use season ticket bays or shopmobility bays. On the street, a badge and clock let you park on single or double yellow lines for up to three hours where loading is not restricted. All of this is from the council’s blue badge concessions page.

An expired badge means no concession and a penalty charge notice.

The station car park

Andover station has 463 parking spaces, nine of them accessible, according to National Rail. It is run by South Western Railway, not the council, and it is the most expensive parking in town by a distance.

Put that beside the council’s long stay rate and a peak day at the station costs £10.00 against £4.40 at The Acre or Winchester Road. Blue badge holders park free at the station if they register with SWR first.

Permits and season tickets

On-street residents’ permits are Hampshire County Council’s, applied for through MiPermit. Permits are digital, and the county will not publish the price: its own page says prices “are available upon application”. You need a copy of your council tax bill plus proof the vehicle is kept at the address. Permits are non-refundable and non-transferable, they apply at weekends and bank holidays unless the signs say otherwise, and blue badge holders do not need one.

Car park season tickets are the borough’s, in a small number of car parks in Andover and Romsey, at roughly a 40% discount on the daily rate over five days a week. The published prices are:

• £680.00 a year, or £200.00 a quarter
• Shepherds Spring Lane only: £530.00 a year, or £150.00 a quarter

Spaces are limited and there are waiting lists. You cannot apply online: ring the parking team on 01264 368000. Note that the season ticket page carries a last-updated date of January 2023, so confirm the price when you call.

Paying, and the things that catch people out

Every pay and display machine takes cards and contactless, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, and coins from 5p to £2. No change is given. RingGo works across the car parks for a small convenience fee.

The Chantry Centre multi-storey also runs a check in, check out system: insert your card and key in your registration at the machines in the level 1A lift lobby on arrival, then check out at the same machines before you leave.

Motorcycles park free in the designated motorcycle bays, but pay in general bays. Coaches use Shepherds Spring Lane by prior arrangement only, because there is a locked height barrier: ring 07833 930655. Coach parking is £3.50 for five hours or £7.00 all day.

There are 18 fast charge points at 22kW in council car parks across Andover and Romsey, plus two rapid chargers at Romsey Rapids on a different payment system. You still have to pay to park while you charge, during charging hours.

Penalty charge notices

The council warns that scam text messages about Andover parking fines are circulating. Test Valley issues penalty charge notices by post only and will never text you about one. Hampshire County Council carries the same warning about its own PCNs. Delete the text.

To challenge one, appeal online through the council’s PCN portal, where you can also see the photographic evidence. You cannot appeal by phone. If you challenge within 14 days and are turned down, the council says it will generally extend the discount period. Ignore it for 28 days and a Notice to Owner follows, then an independent adjudicator at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.

What is about to change, and how to object

Test Valley advertised a notice of proposals for a new Off Street Parking Places Order on 10 August 2026, which would amend the 2022 order. The changes it lists are:

• Chantry Centre multi-storey, level 2A: the electric vehicle charging bays go, and parent and child bays are added.
• George Yard (East): the temporary disabled parking bays become permanent.
• Winchester Road car park: season ticket parking is introduced.
• High Street south end: the time-limited disabled-only bays and the market day restrictions stay, and the council may designate more disabled-only spaces there, signed on site.
• Shepherds Spring Lane: the two-hour free option is no longer available through RingGo, but remains available on a pay and display ticket.
• Romsey Rapids: the four-hour free option has gone from RingGo, and likewise remains on a pay and display ticket.
• Church Road, former Magistrates car park, Romsey: the Hampshire County Council visitor and permit bays are removed.
• Every car park: the council gives itself the power to designate any existing bay as an electric vehicle charging bay.

Everything else in the order stays as it is. Objections and representations have to be in writing, must give the grounds they are made on, and must reach the Director of Legal and Democratic Services at Beech Hurst, Weyhill Road, Andover, SP10 3AJ by 16:00 on Thursday 11 September 2026. The detailed proposals can be inspected at Beech Hurst and at the council offices in Romsey.

Also in Andover

• Andover roadworks and travel, for closures affecting access to the car parks.
• Andover bin collection days.
• Andover council tax bands.
• Andover train times to London, if you are heading for the station car park.