News · Parking · Newcastle CBD

Newcastle CBD’s paid 2P parking now runs to 7pm on weekdays. Council staff say a permit for residents after 5pm cannot be issued

In the blocks bounded by Darby, King, Pacific and Scott Streets, paid 2P parking used to end at 5pm. Residents there without off-street parking who park on the street now pay until 7pm, and the CBD has been outside the resident permit scheme since 2014. On 6 October council supported a motion requesting a post-implementation review and asking the chief executive to consider options for those residents. Staff say they will bring a wider parking review to council by December.

The Hunter Ledger · 9 October 2026 · 11 primary sources, read 9 October 2026

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The short answer. If you live in Newcastle’s East End and park on the street, the paid hours on the 2P spaces there now run from 9am to 7pm on weekdays, two hours later than before, and you cannot get a resident permit to skip them. City of Newcastle’s own page on the change puts it as Weekdays: 2P, paid parking extended to 7pm, introduced from the beginning of September across the area bound by Darby, Scott, Pacific and King Streets. Council staff told councillors that a permit covering only the evening hours is not possible: The legislation does not allow the creation of permits with partial or conditional exemptions from parking restrictions. Two councillors had asked for one. What the council supported on 6 October, by its own summary, was a review and a request that the chief executive consider options; it does not change the signs.

• 5pm to 7pmthe two weekday hours now paid in 2P zones, from the beginning of September 2026
• $5.70an hour, the council’s posted rate for 1P, 2P, 4P and 8P areas
• $11.40the most one car pays for the 5pm to 7pm window at that rate (our arithmetic)
• Since 2014the CBD has been an exclusion area for resident permits, the council says

What the signs say now

The change is a staff rollout of longer restrictions, based, a May memo to councillors says, on arrangements in place in the Darby Street precinct since late 2019. Before it, the usual sign in these blocks was 2P paid parking from 9am to 5pm on weekdays and 2P free parking from 9am to 12 noon on Saturdays, according to the memo’s table of current and updated restrictions. Now the weekday paid period runs to 7pm, and a new 4P limit applies from 9am to 4pm on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, still free. The council page warns that some spots differ, with 1/2P or 1P in parts of Hunter Street and Crown Street for example, so the sign at the kerb is the one that counts.

For a resident with no driveway, the new cost sits in those two weekday hours. The council’s parking page says Hourly rates in 1P, 2P, 4P and 8P parking areas are $5.70 per hour Monday - Sunday. Parking from 5pm to 7pm in a 2P paid space therefore costs up to $11.40 an evening, or $57 across five weekdays (our arithmetic, at the posted rate; a car arriving later pays for less of the window). The motion that brought this to council put the residents’ case this way: residents without any off-street parking now must pay to park outside their property between 5pm and 7pm, beyond standard working hours.

Why there is no evening permit

In Newcastle’s permit precincts, the council says, resident and visitor permits exempt you from timed and metered parking within your precinct where the signs say so. The CBD is not one of those precincts. The council’s parking page says that if you live within the CBD exclusion zone you will not be eligible, and its FAQ on the change says The CBD area has been specifically designated as an exclusion area for the residential permit scheme since 2014.

Staff gave councillors two reasons not to change that, in their written comment on the motion in the 6 October business papers. The first is about the law, as staff describe it: the state framework governs parking permits, and so permits cannot be issued to exempt residents from specific time-based restrictions, including restrictions applying only after 5.00pm. The second is policy: extending permits into the CBD would contradict the council’s Parking Plan 2021 to 2030 and significantly reduce the availability of on-street parking within the CBD. Their conclusion: No changes to the current permit exclusion arrangements are recommended.

The council’s answer to residents in the same FAQ is that they can use on-street parking spaces, provided they comply with the relevant parking restrictions in the area, and it points longer stays to off-street car parks, of which it says there are more than 3,000 spaces across Newcastle.

How a review became new signs

Whether staff could make this change without a fresh council vote is the dispute inside the 6 October motion. Staff say the rollout is the operational response to Notice of Motions (NOM) unanimously supported by Council from July 2024 and July 2025, and that CN officers are delegated the authority to amend and approve parking restrictions, with changes documented through the council’s Local Transport Forum.

The records of those two meetings, attached to the staff comment, show how they were framed. In July 2024 the motion, from Councillors Barrie, Pull and Wark, asked only for the Saturday 2-hour limit, then 9am to 12pm, to run from 9am to 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Councillors Pull and McCabe then moved the staff recommendation as an amendment, accepted as a Part B: a review of timed parking in the block bounded by King, Scott, Hunter, Darby and Pacific Streets, with a view to improving turnover on weekday evenings as well as weekends and public holidays. The minutes record the result as carried; they do not say unanimously. In July 2025 a unanimous resolution on the Hunter Street Mall noted that officers intended to change Hunter Street parking between Wolfe and Brown Streets under delegation. That motion, as lodged, had asked for a review of temporary parking in the mall to support additional 30-minute unpaid parking; staff advised against replacing paid parking with free parking, and the 13 May 2026 memo set 1P paid parking to 7pm on Hunter Street between Thorn and Brown Streets.

The 28 July review is where the two sides now meet. It asked staff to Include in the review the outcome of CBD parking changes and updates. Staff call the result the Strategic Parking Plan Review and write that CN is committed to delivering the Strategic Parking Plan Review to Council by December 2026, with any recommendation needing a council decision to be reported separately.

What council asked for on 6 October

The motion Councillors Pull and Barrie lodged on 10 September did four things: it said the July review does not authorise staff to act on its recommendations without council approval, asked for the review’s outcomes to come to council, required council approval before any resulting change, and Requests that staff develop a permit scheme for residents affected by the recent extension of paid parking from 5pm to 7pm. Its permits were meant only for residents who bought or leased before the change and shall not be offered to new residents who buy or lease after the updated restrictions have been put in place.

The council’s summary, published on 6 October, reads in full: Council supported a notice of motion requesting a post-implementation review of the recent city parking changes, including the impacts on turnover and usage, and requests that the CEO consider options to address the impacts on residents in affected areas, particularly residents without off street parking. Unlike most of the night’s other motions, it is not described as unanimous. The minutes, which will give the exact words and any recorded vote, were not on the council’s meeting portal when we looked on 9 October.

Our view

This section is opinion, built on the facts above.

Managing scarce kerb space so evening customers can find a park is a fair aim, and councillors resolved on that review in 2024. But the council now charges residents who park on these streets for two more hours each weekday, and the December review is where it should show the evidence. Its own benchmark, its FAQ says, is 85% occupancy. Its FAQ also says the change is supported by sensor data and by the Darby Street experience, while its sensors page, as we read it on 9 October, names Darby Street and Beaumont Street as the installed locations and lists Hunter Street as in planning. If East End kerbs between 5pm and 7pm were not running above that benchmark, charging residents in that window is hard to justify; if they were, the review should publish the numbers.

The permit answer deserves the same daylight. One leg of it is staff’s reading of the state framework, which a resident is entitled to see cited. The other is the 2014 exclusion, which is the council’s own policy and the council’s to keep or change. We will add the 6 October minutes when they are published, and read the Strategic Parking Plan Review against this story when it reaches council.

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