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The car parking service aims to:
- provide safe and clean car parks and promote a positive image
- encourage short-term shopper and business parking for the benefit of the local economy
- provide a reasonable return on the Council’s investment in car parks for the benefit of the Council taxpayer.
Visit our Car Parks Directory to search car parks by location and to find more information about each individual car park.
The Council reviews charges annually.
Please see our Car park season tickets page for information on:
- residential parking
- business parking
- permits
- season tickets
Parking ticket machines
All parking ticket machines are emptied daily and regularly serviced.
Machines in our pay and display car parks will accept overpayment but will not give change. Please be aware that some parking ticket machines do not take bank notes or credit cards and you will need to have change. Issued tickets cannot be swapped between vehicles or car parks.
If you buy a ticket that expires after 6pm it will automatically be carried on the following day.
Your pay and display ticket must be clearly displayed in the front windscreen of your vehicle.
Report a machine fault
More information and locations
There are numerous car parks owned by us across the district.
For information on individual car parks, visit our Car Parks Directory. Alternatively, you can view our schedule of car parks to find opening hours, capacity and parking charges.
Make sure that you have bought a ticket and that is clearly displayed when using any of our car parks. If there is a problem with a pay and display machine, report it to us.
Don’t forget, if you do not have change, you can always pay for parking using PayByPhone.
We provide disabled parking provisions in most of our car parks. You can view the Number of disabled parking bays available here.
At this present time, none of our car parks provide dedicated motor home parking. If you do need to park your motor home, we recommend purchasing multiple tickets to cover the number of bays you have parked in.
Off Street Parking Orders
More information
Drivers with a disability
With the display of a valid Blue Badge showing the time of arrival and appropriate payment made, an allowance of an additional 1 hour time is granted free of charge in all pay and display car parks only. In the Mendip and Sedgemoor area parking is free when a valid Blue Badge is displayed.
Overnight parking
You can park overnight but you will need to check the terms of the car park you intend to park and ensure, if required, that you have paid for a parking session which will cover the start of enforcement the following day.
Off street parking
Somerset Council operates a number of pay and display car parks throughout the county. Please note, caravans and lorries over 7.5 tonnes may not use car parks provided by the Council. Customers have the option to pay parking charges by using the cashless parking system. There are no additional charges for using this service, customers only pay the parking charge.
On-street parking
Somerset Council manages parking on the streets throughout the county and enforces on-street parking regulations.
Parking enforcement
We enforce parking regulations in car parks. We do this through our service provider NSL Ltd who will issue penalty charge notices to motorists who break parking rules. You can find out more on our Parking fines – Penalty Charge Notices page.
Temporary parking and access needs
We can arrange temporary parking and access to car parks near specific properties. For example, builders wanting to place skips, or requests for no parking in a particular area to create access to yards/gardens backing onto Council owned car parks. Please contact us for further information or to make a request.
Snow and Ice in car parks
We do not carry out precautionary gritting of council-owned car parks but will take reasonable action to ensure they are safe to use, depending on the resources available. Priority will be given to the car park entrances and access routes used by a high number of pedestrians. Depending on the extent and severity of the weather event, some low-priority car parks may not be cleared for several days. Clearance of any car park will not start until the adjoining highway is clear to allow vehicular access.
Drivers are responsible for the safe movement of their vehicles and should drive with care when using the car parks during icy or snowy conditions. Pedestrians and drivers need to make their own assessment as to whether a car park is safe to use.
Enquiries
For enquiries relating to on-street parking, Penalty Charge Notices and parking enforcement contact:
Address: Somerset Parking Partnership, Somerset Council, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 4DY
Email: parking@somerset.gov.uk
Phone: 0300 123 2224