West Sussex Council Raises Drivers’ Parking Permits Up to 36 Percent This October

• West Sussex County Council is raising every on-street parking permit and pay-and-display charge in Worthing from Wednesday 1 October 2026, the second parking rise in the town within six weeks.
• The carer permit, held by people looking after a relative or friend who needs regular care at home, rises fastest of all: from £22 to £30 a year, up 36.4 percent.
• A first resident permit in the town’s part-day zones rises 14.3 percent, from £35 to £40, with parking charges also going up this year in North Herts, Merton and Tower Hamlets.

Every parking permit in Worthing’s controlled parking zones costs more from 1 October, and so does parking on the street itself. West Sussex County Council published the notice of variation on 10 September, giving three weeks’ warning before the new charges take effect. It is the second parking rise to hit the town in six weeks: Worthing Borough Council’s own car park charges already rose by about 3.5 percent on 24 August, under a separate notice dated 20 July. The two increases are unconnected, run by different councils, but land on the same drivers five weeks apart.

The county council, not the borough, sets the price of on-street parking in Worthing, varying the charges in the schedule to its own 2007 consolidation order for the town. The steepest percentage rise on the list is the carer permit, up more than a third from £22 to £30 a year. That permit is issued to residents receiving regular care at home, for the relative or friend who provides it, rather than to the person being cared for. The healthcare permit, aimed at care workers rather than family carers, rises a fifth, from £25 to £30.

Why the cheapest permits are rising fastest

For most households, the figure that counts most is the ordinary resident permit. In Worthing’s part-day zones, which cover the residential streets outside the town centre and are enforced only between 10am and 11am and 2pm and 3pm on weekdays and Saturdays, a first resident permit rises 14.3 percent, from £35 to £40 a year, with a second permit for the same household rising from £70 to £80. In the all-day zones closer to the town centre, the rise is gentler in percentage terms: a first resident permit goes from £63 to £68, up 7.9 percent.

The pattern across the whole notice is consistent: the cheapest permits rise fastest in percentage terms, while the pound amounts involved stay small. Visitor permits follow the same pattern. A book of ten rises from £6 to £7, and the daily permit in a nine-hour zone goes from £2.70 to £3.15. On-street pay and display is rising too, and here the outer town centre zone sees the steepest jump of the three published rates, up 16.7 percent from £1.20 to £1.40 an hour, against smaller rises for the premium and standard town centre rates.

Businesses that need to occupy or suspend a parking bay face the largest increases of all. A permit bay that costs £15 a day now will cost £20 from October, and a pay and display bay rented for a week rises from £150 to £180. The council’s three dispensation charges, used by builders, removal firms and anyone needing to suspend a residential bay for work, all rise by exactly a third. A week of dispensation on a pay and display bay outside a house being renovated goes up by £30.

Worthing is not an isolated case this year. North Herts Council has built annual parking fee increases into its medium-term financial strategy, with resident permit zone rises implemented from 1 May 2026 across the district. Merton Council increased on-street and car park charges from 21 April 2026, and Tower Hamlets changed its parking charges from 21 September 2026, only a week before West Sussex published its own notice. None of the three has published the same scale of detail as West Sussex’s notice, but all three confirm that permit and parking charges have gone up somewhere in England for much of this year, not just in Worthing.

Can you avoid it?

The notice also covers Adur, the district next to Worthing, where the same charges for suspending a parking bay rise under Adur’s own 2009 consolidation order, also from 1 October. A resident of Adur booking a skip or scaffolding permit outside their house faces the same one-third increase in the dispensation charge as a Worthing resident, while Adur’s own resident permit prices are unaffected by this particular notice. Anyone comparing prices between the two neighbouring areas should check which council’s order actually applies to their street: the two authorities run separate schemes that happen to share a border.

Countywide permits, which let a holder park in any West Sussex zone rather than one specific town, rise from £40 to £45 a year, a smaller percentage increase than the carer or healthcare permits but still a real cost for anyone who works across multiple towns in the county. None of the increases changes the hours a zone is enforced or who qualifies for a permit in the first place. Only the price changes on 1 October, which means a driver who already holds a valid permit does not need to reapply, only to expect a higher renewal bill when the current permit expires.

The clearest way to soften the impact is timing. A permit renewed before 1 October is charged at the price in force on the day it is bought, so anyone whose permit is due in the next few weeks can renew early and lock in twelve months at the old rate. On a first resident permit in a part-day zone, that saves £5; on a second permit in the same household, it saves £10. This only helps with a renewal, not a new application in a zone that already has a waiting list, as some of Worthing’s zones do not have space for new permit holders regardless of price.

Anyone eligible for the low emission discount should check the price at the point of purchase rather than assume it has risen by the same percentage as the standard rate. The council’s notice of variation applies only to the charges it lists, and the discounted low emission rates, £27 for a first permit in the part-day zones and £48 in the all-day zones, do not appear in the notice at all. The 2007 order that sets those discounted rates otherwise stays in force, so they are not confirmed to be rising on 1 October in the way the standard permits are.

Blue Badge holders who do not have access to a disabled bay can still get a first permit free of charge under a separate council rule, which the notice of variation does not touch. If building work, a house move or a skip hire means a bay needs to be suspended, booking and paying before 1 October avoids the third rise in the dispensation and bay suspension fees, which is worth doing given how much larger those increases are than the resident permit rises.

Drivers who only ever use Worthing’s multi-storey car parks rather than on-street bays will not see a change on 1 October, as the borough’s off-street charges already rose in August under a separate notice. For everyone else, the practical step is simple: check the renewal date on any permit held in Worthing, and in North Herts, Merton or Tower Hamlets, and renew ahead of the relevant deadline where the rules allow it.

Sources

Notice of variation: on-street parking charges 2026, Worthing Borough and Adur District, West Sussex County Council, published 10 September 2026, effective 1 October 2026, publicnoticeportal.uk. Worthing Borough Council notice of variation, changes to parking charges in Worthing car parks, dated 20 July 2026, effective 24 August 2026. North Herts Council, “Parking fee changes for 2026/27,” north-herts.gov.uk. Merton Council, “Changes to parking charges 2026,” merton.gov.uk. Tower Hamlets Council, “Parking charges 2026 to 2027,” towerhamlets.gov.uk.