Two hours on Lewes High Street costs £9.35. Brook Street car park is £2.15 for over four hours. Council car parks only charge Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm.
Parking in Lewes is split between two authorities, and the price gap between them is the single most useful thing to know. East Sussex County Council runs the on-street bays. Lewes District Council runs the car parks. The county charges roughly four times as much.
Two hours in an on-street bay on Lewes High Street costs £9.35. Two hours in the district council’s Friars Walk car park, four minutes’ walk away, costs £2.00. A whole day at Brook Street costs £2.15.
Lewes District Council car parks
Every council car park in the district charges on the same schedule. The council’s own 2026 charges sheet, dated 12 May 2026, prints it in a single line at the foot of the table:
ALL CAR PARKS OPERATE MONDAY - SATURDAY 09:00h - 17:00h
So the district’s car parks are free before 9am, free after 5pm, and free all day on Sunday. That is not stated anywhere on the council’s parking web page. It is only in the PDF.
There are seven tariffs across the district. These are the 2026 charges:
| Stay | Short stay | Medium stay | Long stay | Dacre Rd / Lower Place | Seaford / Newhaven | West Quay | Brook St |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 30 mins | 70p | - | - | Free | 70p | - | - |
| Up to 1 hour | 90p | 90p | 80p | Free | 90p | - | - |
| Up to 2 hours | £2.00 | £1.90 | £1.55 | £1.25 | £1.25 | £1.25 | - |
| Up to 3 hours | - | £2.90 | £2.45 | £1.45 | £1.45 | £1.45 | - |
| Up to 4 hours | - | £3.85 | £3.20 | £2.00 | £2.05 | £2.05 | - |
| Over 4 hours | - | - | £4.55 | £2.45 | £2.50 | - | £2.15 |
| Max stay | 2 hrs | 4 hrs | 8 hrs | 8 hrs | 8 hrs | 4 hrs | 8 hrs |
Two things stand out. The Dacre Road multi-storey and Lower Place in Newhaven are free for the first hour, the only council car parks in the district that are. And the Brook Street tariff has one price and nothing else: the council’s table shows £2.15 for over four hours and a dash against every shorter period.
Which car park is on which tariff
Lewes town
| Car park | Tariff | Bays | Max stay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brook Street | Brook St | 106 | 8 hrs |
| Spring Gardens | Brook St | 20 | 8 hrs |
| Phoenix Causeway | Long stay | 97 | 8 hrs |
| Mountfield Road | Long stay | 58 | 8 hrs |
| The Maltings | Long stay | 27 | 8 hrs |
| Pinwell Road | Long stay | 22 | 8 hrs |
| East Street | Medium stay | 28 | 4 hrs |
| Little East Street | Medium stay | 31 | 4 hrs |
| Westgate Street | Medium stay | 25 | 4 hrs |
| Friars Walk | Short stay | 77 | 2 hrs |
| West Street | Short stay | 48 | 2 hrs |
| Market Lane (Saturdays only) | Short stay | 14 | 2 hrs |
| South Street North | Short stay | 13 | 2 hrs |
| Cliffe High Street | Short stay | 12 | 2 hrs |
Newhaven and Seaford
| Car park | Tariff | Bays | Max stay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dacre Road multi-storey, Newhaven | Dacre Rd / Lower Place | 148 | 8 hrs |
| Lower Place, Newhaven | Dacre Rd / Lower Place | 44 | 8 hrs |
| West Quay, Newhaven | West Quay | 37 | 4 hrs |
| Richmond Road, Seaford | Seaford / Newhaven | 65 | 8 hrs |
| West Street, Seaford | Seaford / Newhaven | 50 | 8 hrs |
| Sutton Road, Seaford | Seaford / Newhaven | 45 | 8 hrs |
| Saxon Lane, Seaford | Seaford / Newhaven | 41 | 8 hrs |
Every one of them has a two-hour no-return rule, except Spring Gardens, where it is three hours. Dacre Road multi-storey has 14 disabled bays, more than any other in the district.
Payment is by coin or through RingGo. The council charges 20p a transaction to use RingGo, plus an optional 10p if you want a text before your time runs out.
The free car parks
Lewes District Council owns or manages 19 car parks that make no charge at all. Its own list is:
- Newhaven: Bay Vue (BN9 9RJ), Denton Islands (BN9 9BN)
- Seaford: Buckle (BN25 2QR), Esplanade (BN25 1JT), High & Over (BN25 3AB), South Hill Barn (BN25 4JQ)
- Peacehaven: Bastion Steps (BN10 8LT), Roderick Avenue north (BN10 7NP), Roderick Avenue south (BN10 8LE), Steyning Avenue (BN10 8NS), Piddinghoe Avenue (BN10 8QX)
- Telscombe: Fairlight Avenue (BN10 7AD)
- Ringmer: Anchor Field (BN8 5QW)
- Ditchling: Village Hall (BN6 8TT)
- Barcombe: BN8 5DH
Note what is missing from that list: there is no free council car park anywhere in Lewes town.
Treat the list with a little care. The council’s free car park PDF has not been revised since 2017, and it opens by saying “restrictions may apply, please refer to individual notice boards at the relevant car park”. The council also warns that penalties can be issued in its free car parks.
Height barriers catch people out, particularly with a roof box or a van:
- 1.9m: Bay Vue, Newhaven
- 2.0m: Roderick Avenue north, Steyning Avenue and Piddinghoe Avenue in Peacehaven; Buckle in Seaford
- 2.1m: Barcombe High Street; Dacre Road, Denton Islands and West Quay in Newhaven; Richmond Road in Seaford
- 2.2m: Fairlight Avenue, Telscombe
On-street parking, and why it costs so much
The county council’s Lewes on-street page sets three bands of charge. High Street is the dearest street parking in the district by a wide margin.
| Stay | High Street | Intermediate | Outer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 minutes | £1.30 | - | - |
| 30 minutes | £2.45 | 75p | - |
| 1 hour | £4.75 | £1.50 | 75p |
| 2 hours | £9.35 | £2.90 | £1.50 |
| 4 hours | - | £5.80 | £3.65 |
| 8 hours | - | £11.50 | £3.65 |
| 10 hours | - | £14.35 | £3.65 |
The Outer band is the bargain: £3.65 buys anything from five hours to ten. The Intermediate band charges £14.35 for the same ten hours.
When the charges apply is different in every zone, which is the part that gets people ticketed:
- Zone A, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Saturdays are free.
- Zones B, C, D and HS, 9am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday.
- Zone E, 8am to 6pm, Monday to Saturday, though the county council says parts of zone E are Monday to Friday.
And, in the county council’s own words, charges do not apply on bank holidays. On-street parking in Lewes is free today.
Permits
Resident permits are issued by the county council, not the district. Lewes has seven zones: A, B, C, D, E, G and HS. Permits are virtual and tied to a registration number, and a household can buy up to two.
The price depends on your car’s CO2 emissions:
| Band | First permit, 12 months | Second permit, 12 months |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | £115 | £154 |
| Discount level 1 | £102 | £144 |
| Discount level 2 | £91 | £132 |
| Discount level 3 | £67 | £107 |
| Discount level 4 | £19 | £60 |
Two Lewes-only quirks, both from the county council’s resident permits page:
- A zone HS permit is valid in two zones, not one.
- A zone C permit also gets you into the South Street (South) car park.
Concessionary permits for West Quay in Newhaven and Sutton Croft Lane in Seaford are the two exceptions handled by the district council. Everything else goes through the Lewes Parking Shop.
Blue badge
In the district council’s car parks, disabled badge holders park free of charge. That covers every pay and display car park listed above.
On the street, the county council’s blue badge rules allow a badge holder to park without time limit or payment in paid parking bays, time limited bays and shared use bays, and for up to three hours on a single or double yellow line with the clock displayed. There is one concession unique to this district: permit holder only bays are open to blue badge holders in Lewes, and nowhere else in East Sussex.
Station parking
Lewes station car park is run by APCOA. It has 283 spaces, six accessible bays, two electric charging bays and a 2 metre entrance barrier, and it is open around the clock. The tariff is:
- Up to 1 hour: £4.00
- Up to 4 hours: £7.60
- Up to 6 hours: £11.40
- Daily, Monday to Friday: £9.40
- Daily, Saturday and Sunday: £8.30
Blue badge holders park free, but the car park is controlled by number plate recognition, so you have to register the car on arrival as well as display the badge.
Everywhere else on the district’s rail lines, station parking is thin or absent. From National Rail’s own station data:
| Station | Spaces |
|---|---|
| Lewes | 293 |
| Cooksbridge | 24 |
| Seaford | 14 |
| Plumpton | 13 |
| Falmer | 10 |
| Newhaven Town | none |
| Newhaven Harbour | none |
| Glynde | none |
| Southease | none |
Newhaven has two railway stations and neither has a car park. The nearest council parking is Dacre Road multi-storey, where the first hour is free.
National Rail records 293 spaces at Lewes and APCOA records 283. We have used the operator’s figure for the car park itself.
Parking tickets
The county council issues and processes penalty charge notices for both on-street and off-street parking across Lewes district, using NSL Services staff based at the Lewes Parking Shop. There are two rates:
- Higher charge £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days
- Lower charge £50, reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days
The county council also warns that it never sends text messages about penalty charge notices, after a run of scam texts claiming to be from RingGo. Forward those to 7726.
More Lewes local information: bin collection days, roadworks and travel, council tax bands, things to do and train times to London.
Every charge on this page was checked against Lewes District Council, East Sussex County Council, APCOA and National Rail on 31 August 2026. Tariffs change; check the sign before you pay.
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