Car Parks

Park from 20p per hour at Queensway Car Park

What’s New?

From 9th June, motorists will be able to park for as little as £4.80 per day or 20p per hour at Westminster City Council’s Queensway car park.

We are introducing an innovative pricing scheme based on easyJet-style pricing, whereby tickets are sold at flexible prices depending on the number of available spaces. Unlike booking flights, the price to park is advertised by a digital sign at the entrance barrier of the car park. We could charge motorists as little as £4.80 for a whole day of parking because we hope to have at least 30% more cars parked.

Alastair Gilchrist, Director of Parking at Westminster Council says:
“We know that many drivers in London are put off by expensive parking charges. This new way of charging will allow us to reduce prices by encouraging more people to park in our car parks. This could be as low as £4.80 for the first number of motorists to park for a whole day. We have seen the huge success of easyJet amongst others and now hope to bring in low cost parking.”

Before considering this scheme, the council has been speaking to industry for advice. Toby Nicol, Director of Corporate Communications from easyJet said:
“This is an exciting idea by Westminster Council and we were more than happy to offer advice to them about low cost pricing. We hope that motorists will be as happy with low cost parking as we have been with low cost flying.”

The average cost of parking a car for a day in Central London is about £20. The cost of parking on-street in the West End is £4 per hour.

How Does It Work?

The pricing scheme will be tested from 9th June 2008. If successful, it will be introduced permanently and rolled out to other car parks in Westminster.

When the car park is empty, the lowest hourly rate will be charged (as low as 20p per hour). As the car park begins to fill up, the hourly rate will increase. It is very important that all customers check the hourly rate on the digital tariff board upon reaching the car park barrier. There is a minimum charge of 1 hour, and all stays will be rounded up to the nearest hour for pricing purposes. The hourly rate shown when you enter the car park is the hourly rate you will pay for the entire duration of your stay, irrespective of how the rate varies during the time you are parked in the car park, or your length of stay.

Our aim is to increase usage of the car park as much as possible, so that we always charge a competitive hourly rate. However, rates will vary over the trial period - please check the applicable rate upon reaching the car park barrier.

The table below gives an EXAMPLE of the new pricing scheme:

All season ticket customers, and customers who have pre-existing special arrangements will not be affected by this pricing trial in any way, and should continue to use the car park as usual.

Please note, lost tickets will be charged at £32 per day.

Our Queensway page contains further information about the car park.

All Westminster City Council car parks have been awarded Safer Car Park status. We are the only car park operator in London to have 100% Safer Car Park status.