Every council car park in Abingdon gives you the first hour free, but three of the eight charge on Sundays too. All eight tariffs, the permits, and the Blue Badge rule.

The first hour is free in every council car park in Abingdon, as long as you take a ticket. That is the easy part. The part that catches people is Sunday, because five of the eight are free all day and three are not, and two of the three sit right next to one that is.

Every figure below was checked on 1 September 2026 against Vale of White Horse District Council’s own car park pages, each one linked in the table.

Sunday is where the money goes

Abbey Close and Cattle Market are both on Abbey Close, both signed OX14 3JE, and they are a few yards apart. One charges on a Sunday. One does not.

Charged on Sundays, 8am to 6pm:

Free on Sundays: Cattle Market, Civic, West St Helen Street, Audlett Drive and the Charter multi-storey. All five charge Monday to Saturday only.

So if you are coming in on a Sunday, park in the Cattle Market rather than Abbey Close, and use Audlett Drive rather than Rye Farm. It is the same walk and it is the difference between nothing and £7.

Every council car park and what it costs

Charging hours are 8am to 6pm everywhere. Maximum stay is 23 hours except at the Charter, where it is three.

Car park Postcode Spaces Sunday 2 hrs 4 hrs Over 6 hrs
Abbey Close OX14 3JE 75 + 4 disabled charged £2.00 £4.00 £7.00
Cattle Market OX14 3JE 52 + 3 disabled free £2.00 £4.00 £7.00
Civic OX14 3JH 65 + 6 disabled free £2.00 £4.00 £7.00
West St Helen Street OX14 5BU 89 + 6 disabled free £2.00 £4.00 £7.00
Charter multi-storey OX14 3LH 57 + 13 disabled free £2.00 3 hrs max 3 hrs max
Audlett Drive OX14 3ND 72 + 3 disabled free £1.50 £3.00 £5.00
Rye Farm OX14 3NN over 115, 6 disabled charged £1.50 £3.00 £5.00
Hales Meadow OX14 3NN 15 + 2 disabled charged £1.50 £3.00 £5.00

There are only two tariffs in the town. The four central car parks and the Charter run £2.00 for two hours, £3.00 for three, £4.00 for four, £5.00 for five, £6.00 for six and £7.00 beyond that. The three on the edge, Audlett Drive, Rye Farm and Hales Meadow, run £1.50, £2.00, £3.00, £3.50, £4.00 and £5.00 on the same steps.

Motorcycles park free in all of them.

Prices are frozen this year. Cabinet agreed on 30 January 2026 not to raise parking fees for 2026/27, which the council announced on 11 February. The same decision commits the Vale to moving towards ticketless parking, with a public consultation promised for the spring.

The two-hour return rule

This one is on every car park page and almost nobody reads it: “No return to any district council car park in the town within 2 hours, unless a fee is paid.”

It applies across the whole town, not per car park. Using your free hour in the Cattle Market, driving round to the Civic and taking another free hour is not allowed.

The Charter multi-storey is half shut

Levels 3 and above are closed on structural and fire safety grounds. Only level 2 and the basement are open, which is why a multi-storey shows just 57 standard spaces. The height limit is 1.9m, and the maximum stay is three hours rather than the 23 you get elsewhere.

Blue badge and accessible bays

If you display a valid Blue Badge, parking is free with no time limit in the district council’s car parks. There is no separate application and no charge.

Between them the eight car parks have 43 marked disabled bays. The Charter has by far the most at 13. The Civic, West St Helen Street and Rye Farm have six each. Hales Meadow has two, and Audlett Drive three.

Permits, and the prices the council does not publish

The Vale sells season tickets for six of the eight car parks. The monthly price is on each car park’s page:

  • £91 a month, Monday to Sunday: Abbey Close, Cattle Market, West St Helen Street
  • £65 a month, Monday to Sunday: Audlett Drive, Rye Farm
  • £13 a month, market traders’ day permit: Hales Meadow
  • No permits at all at the Civic

The council says permits can also be bought yearly, six-monthly or quarterly, but it does not publish those prices anywhere on the site. To get them you have to call the car parks team on 01235 470118 or email carparks.southandvale.uk@sabagroup.com.

Residents’ parking: Abingdon does not have it

There is no controlled parking zone in Abingdon. Oxfordshire County Council, which runs all on-street parking, states that “Oxford city is currently the only area of Oxfordshire to have CPZs”. So there are no residents’ permits to apply for here, and the permits above are car park season tickets, not street permits.

The county did consult on one. A residents’ permit parking zone for the Centre North area was put to residents in November 2024, and the cabinet member for transport management dealt with it on 4 September 2025. Almost all of it was dropped.

What survived:

  • dual purpose paid and permit-holder bays, with an AN prefix, in Withington Court
  • new double yellow lines on sections of Thesiger Road, Abbott Road and Oxford Road

What was withdrawn:

  • resident permit bays on Abbott Road, Aston Close, Bath Street service road, Clifton Drive, Fitzharry’s Road, Kingston Close, Letcombe Avenue, Nuneham Square, Stanford Drive, Sutton Close, The Holt, The Motte and Thesiger Road
  • shared permit or two-hour bays on Clifton Drive, Fitzharry’s Road, Nuneham Square and Stamford Drive
  • proposed double yellows on parts of Boxhill Walk, Clifton Drive, Oxford Road, the Oxford service road and Withington Court

The report is published in full by the county council.

Station parking: Abingdon has none, so Radley it is

Abingdon has no railway station. The nearest is Radley, on Foxborough Road, OX14 3AB, about three miles out.

The car park is run by APCOA, not the train operator, and its tariff page gives:

  • £4.50 a day, Monday to Friday
  • £3.00 a day, Saturday and Sunday
  • £3.00 after midnight
  • bank holidays charged at the standard rate

Season tickets are sold monthly, quarterly and annually, but APCOA does not publish those prices on the location page.

Be careful with the space count. APCOA says the car park has 69 spaces including four for disabled drivers. Great Western Railway’s own Radley station page says 35. The two have not been reconciled, so on a weekday morning treat it as small.

Paying, and one small thing worth knowing

All the council car parks take Pay and Display by cash or card, and PayByPhone. The location codes differ per car park: Abbey Close is 810568, Rye Farm 810574 and the Charter 810577.

The public toilets at the Charter car park and at Hales Meadow cost 20p, per the council’s 2026/27 fees and charges schedule. The ones at Abbey Meadow are free.

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