Thursday June 25th 2026
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
A hike in car parking charges across the Scottish Borders has been endorsed.
The Borders currently operates both free parking and Pay & Display, with charges localised to 14 specific car parks across six main towns (Galashiels, Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso, Melrose, and Peebles).
Standard tariffs typically range from 40p to £1 per hour depending on the exact location.
When members of Scottish Borders Council met on Thursday, June 25, they approved a series of changes, following the setting up of a members and officers working group.
Changes include approving a simple, standard hourly parking tariff for the 14 car parks where charges already apply with a ‘£1 per hour’ tariff.
Charging days and hours across 13 car parks are to be standardised to Monday to Saturday, 8.30am to 5pm, with the current charging policy retained at Edinburgh Road, Peebles as Saturday only, 8.30am to 5pm.
The model of permits is to be modernised so that each permit is valid only for one named car park, and allowing the council to limit the number of permits issued for any one car park to protect space for short stay parking and town centre turnover.
A new annual charge for parking permits at £100 is recommended with future adjustments to be considered as part of the annual budget setting process.
There is also set to be a review of existing charity and NHS parking permits, including whether they should continue and, if so, under what clear criteria and conditions.
There is a recommendation to increase the off-street Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) fee to £100 (reduced to £50 if paid within 14 days).
Additionally, there set to be a review existing surplus income sharing and lease arrangements for the following sites by October 2027:
Swimming Pool car park, Peebles
Cross Wynd, car park, Hawick
Teviot road Health Centre car park, Hawick
Abbey car park, Melrose
Lothian car park, Jedburgh
An amendment to a motion proposing the changes, submitted by SNP Galashiels councillor Fay Sinclair, was defeated.
It called for the recommendations to be deferred until August to allow further discussion with members and communities.
Councillor Robin Tatler, Independent for Tweeddale East, said: “Over the last five years parking is the issue that has been raised with me time and time again by my constituents.
“The issue that we still have to resolve is not off-street parking but on-street parking, we haven’t got to that and we have to get to that.
“What we are doing here is, very reasonably, increasing the charges, we need to increase the charges, and the balance after maintenance and so on will go into the infrastructure spending in the council, that is what legally we need to do.”
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