Monkspath Hall Road is £4.10 for six hours and free after 6pm. Brueton and Malvern are free. Shirley gives three hours, Knowle two. Mell Square shut in March.
Six hours in Solihull town centre costs anything from nothing to £10, depending entirely on which car park you pick. Church Hill, Dominion Court, Lode Lane and Poplar Road all charge £10.00 for over six hours. Monkspath Hall Road, a ten-minute walk further out, charges £4.10 for up to six hours and nothing at all after 6pm.
Brueton and Malvern are free, with a three-hour and a two-hour limit. Shirley gives you three hours free. Knowle and Dorridge give two, but only if you take a ticket. And Mell Square car park closed permanently on 31 March 2026, along with its public toilets.
Every price below is Solihull Council’s own, checked on 24 August 2026.
The quick answer
- Cheapest long stay in town: Monkspath Hall Road, £4.10 up to six hours, £5.20 over six, free after 6pm. 1,043 spaces.
- Free, with a clock: Brueton (three hours) and Malvern (two hours). Free and display, so still take a ticket.
- Shirley is nearly free: three hours free, and £2.30 buys you the whole day.
- Knowle and Dorridge: first two hours free, ticket required. Charges run Monday to Saturday, 8.00am to 6.00pm.
- Solihull station is the expensive one: £6.00 a day, and Blue Badge holders pay.
- Resident permits exist on six roads in the whole borough, at £250 to join and £140 a year.
- Parking fine: £50 or £70, halved if you pay within 14 days.
Solihull town centre car parks
Prices below are the council’s Monday to Saturday tariffs. Church Hill, Dominion Court, Lode Lane and Poplar Road share one scale (Solihull Council, town centre car parks).
| Car park | Spaces | Up to 2 hrs | 4 to 5 hrs | Over 6 hrs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Church Hill Road, B91 3QS | 127 | £3.10 | £6.00 | £10.00 |
| Dominion Court, Herbert Road, B91 3QE | 100 to 200 | £3.10 | £6.00 | £10.00 |
| Lode Lane, B91 3AB | 486 | £3.10 | £6.00 | £10.00 |
| Poplar Road, B91 3AB | 569 | £3.10 | £6.00 | £10.00 |
| Monkspath Hall Road, B91 3DN | 1,043 | £4.10 | £4.10 | £5.20 |
| Brueton, Warwick Road, B91 3HW | 69 | Free | 3 hr max | 3 hr max |
| Malvern, New Road, B91 3EA | 69 | Free | 2 hr max | 2 hr max |
Lode Lane is the only town centre car park with a one-hour rate, at £1.90. Everywhere else the meter starts at two hours and £3.10, so a 40-minute errand costs the same as a two-hour one.
The night rate at Church Hill, Dominion Court and Lode Lane is £1.80. At Monkspath Hall Road there is no charge after 6pm at all.
The details that catch people out
- Poplar Road is not open all night. It runs 7.40am to 9.00pm Monday to Friday, 7.15am to 9.00pm on Saturday, and only 10.00am to 5.30pm on Sunday. It is also the lowest at 1.9m, which rules out most roof boxes and vans.
- Council House car park opens at weekends and public holidays only. On Sunday, charges apply after 1.00pm, so a Sunday morning there is free. It takes vehicles up to 3.8m, the tallest in town.
- Dominion Court halves midweek. Only the lower deck, 100 spaces, is open Monday to Friday. Both decks and 200 spaces open at weekends.
- Tudor Grange Leisure Centre on Blossomfield Road is free for three hours, then £4.80 for a fourth hour and £9.00 for over six. Restrictions run 7.00am to 6.00pm every day.
- Brueton and Malvern are “free and display”. Free does not mean ticketless. Take a ticket, and watch the three-hour and two-hour caps.
Church Hill and Poplar Road each have a 7kW electric vehicle charge point, at 42p/kWh with no connection fee, run through the SWARCO eConnect app. Normal parking charges still apply while you charge.
John Lewis and Touchwood run their own private car parks on their own terms.
Shirley: three hours free, £2.30 all day
Shirley has the cheapest parking of any centre in the borough. All three council car parks are free and display, open 24 hours, with no height restriction (Solihull Council, Shirley car parks).
| Duration | Cost |
|---|---|
| Up to 3 hours | Free |
| 3 to 4 hours | £0.60 |
| 4 to 5 hours | £1.30 |
| 5 to 6 hours | £1.80 |
| Over 6 hours | £2.30 |
The three sites are Shirley Shoppers rear of Aldi on Stratford Road (B90 3AE, 36 spaces), rear of Iceland (B90 3AL, 170 spaces, 4 accessible) and Church Road (B90 2AX, 82 spaces, 2 accessible). A full day in Shirley costs less than a quarter of what a fourth hour costs on Church Hill Road.
Knowle and Dorridge: free, but take a ticket
Knowle has six council car parks, five of them clustered around the village hall and the shops on the B93 3GB postcode. Charges apply Monday to Saturday, 8.00am to 6.00pm only (Solihull Council, Knowle and Dorridge car parks).
| Duration | Knowle | Dorridge |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 2 hours | Free, ticket required | Free, ticket required |
| 2 to 3 hours | £1.50 | £1.50 |
| 3 to 4 hours | £2.50 | £2.50 |
| 4 to 6 hours | £3.80 | £3.80 |
| Over 6 hours | £4.70 | £6.00 |
“Free, ticket required” is the trap. The first two hours cost nothing, but you still have to buy a zero-value ticket or start a PayByPhone session. No ticket on the dashboard is an expired-ticket contravention, and that is a £50 penalty.
The two tariffs are identical until the sixth hour, where Dorridge charges £6.00 against Knowle’s £4.70. Dorridge’s is a long-stay car park behind 2 Grange Road (B93 8QR, 110 spaces) and it is the one commuters use.
The largest Knowle car park is behind the Greswolde Arms (B93 0LL, 125 spaces, 5 accessible), and it is the only one selling season permits, at £210 a quarter or £840 a year.
Free car parks across the borough
Ten council car parks charge nothing at all, are open 24 hours, and have no maximum stay unless noted (Solihull Council, car parks across Solihull):
- Monkspath, 214 spaces, 11 accessible
- Castle Bromwich, Parkfield Drive, 71 spaces, 5 accessible
- Balsall Common, behind the library, 61 spaces
- Chelmsley Wood, Hedingham Grove, 55 spaces
- Smiths Wood, Arran Way, 46 spaces, 4 accessible
- Lode Lane / Boulton Road, 43 spaces
- Fordbridge, Crabtree Drive, 31 spaces, 1 accessible
- Kingshurst, Church Close, 24 spaces
- Lodge Croft, 23 spaces
- Olton Station / Shops, B92 7AR, 23 spaces, three-hour maximum
Olton’s is the one to watch. It sits by the station and it is free, but the three-hour cap makes it useless for a day in Birmingham.
Solihull station: £6 a day, and Blue Badges are not exempt
Solihull station car park on Station Approach (B91 1LE) has 446 spaces and 8 accessible bays. It has been run by Excel Parking Services on behalf of Transport for West Midlands since 1 July 2024, not by the train operator and not by the council.
| Ticket | Cost |
|---|---|
| First 30 minutes | Free |
| Off-peak | £3.50 |
| Daily | £6.00 |
| Saturday | £3.50 |
| Sunday | £3.50 |
| Weekly | £22.50 |
Source: Chiltern Railways, Solihull station.
The line that matters is in the same record: “Parking charges apply to Blue Badge holders in this car park.” That is the opposite of the rule in every council car park in the borough, and it catches people out.
You cannot pay at the ticket office or on the station machines. Payment is by cash, card or Swift at the pay stations in the car park, through the SwiftParking or Connect Cashless Parking apps, or by phone on 0345 434 8008. The location code is 5454.
Transport for West Midlands says parking at most of its rail stations is free, and that Solihull is one of only four across the network where you pay, with Bromsgrove, Longbridge and Sutton Coldfield (TfWM, park and ride).
Resident permits: six roads, and £250 to join
This is the smallest scheme of its kind we have seen in a borough this size. Solihull operates resident parking permit schemes on six roads: Austcliff Drive, Crabtree Drive, Edwardian Close, Kilsby Grove, Sevington Close and Thorngrove Avenue (Solihull Council, resident parking permit).
The cost is steep. Each household joining a scheme pays a £250 fee, and then a £140 yearly permit charge, in the joining year and every year after. A household on a permit road therefore pays £390 in year one.
If your road has a parking problem, there is an application form on that page and a set of criteria the council applies before it will consider a new scheme. Separate routes exist for a dropped kerb, an H marking outside your drive, a dispensation permit for a trade or a house move, and a red route permit.
Blue Badge parking
Blue Badge holders park free in the council’s pay and display car parks, and in the marked bays across the borough. The council’s list includes Brueton Park, Church Hill Road, Dominion Court, Lode Lane and Malvern Park in the town centre, the service roads along the A34 Stratford Road, Hobs Moat Road, Drury Lane, the library car parks at Kingshurst and Knowle, and Station Road in Marston Green (Solihull Council, Blue Badge parking spaces).
That list still names Mell Square multi-storey car park, which the council’s own car parks page says has been permanently closed since 31 March 2026. Treat the Mell Square entry as out of date until the council corrects it.
Remember that the exemption is the council’s, not everybody’s. It does not extend to Solihull station, where Excel charges Blue Badge holders the standard tariff.
If you get a ticket
Solihull issues Penalty Charge Notices for parking, bus lane and moving traffic contraventions (Solihull Council, pay a fine):
- Low level, such as an expired pay and display ticket: £50, reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days.
- High level, such as double yellow lines: £70, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days.
- Bus lane and moving traffic fines are halved if paid within 21 days, not 14.
A council PCN reference begins with the letters OH. A notice from Excel Parking at the station is a private parking charge and follows a different appeals route entirely.
Related
- Solihull roadworks and travel, for what is closed before you set off
- Solihull bin collection days, including the Bickenhill tip booking rules
- Solihull council tax bands, for where the parking income sits in the budget
- Things to do in Solihull
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