The 10.30am–5.00pm vehicle restriction, the two staffed Blue Badge entries, who is exempt, and where the free bays are.
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York's footstreets are closed to motor vehicles between 10.30am and 5.00pm, every day, and sliding bollards enforce it. Blue Badge holders can drive in during those hours through two staffed entries. This page says which streets, which hours, which entrance, and what happens if you arrive outside them.
Thursday 30 July
You can drive into the footstreets right now
Vehicles are kept out from 10:30 today.
Before 10.30am and after 5.00pm the barriers are open and anyone can drive in — residents, Blue Badge holders, deliveries. Some streets are stricter than the general rule, though: Deangate and Minster Yard are closed to motor vehicles at all times, the Shambles and Stonegate are bollarded at all times with their own loading windows, and Stonegate has no vehicle access after 5.00pm at all.
Check before you set off
These hours are set by the village and can change — and on a busy day the queues and the parking fill differently. This is a living community, not an attraction with gates. Check the official page below for the live parking webcams and the current rules before you travel.
City centre access for vehicles — City of York Council — The two staffed routes, the exemptions, and the access application form.
Open 0:00–23:59. · Open now
The council lists a limited set of exceptions: emergency services (never restricted), emergency utility works, vehicles being used in connection with medical requirements, community transport, and Blue Badge holders via Goodramgate and Blake Street. Deliveries are not exempt — delivery vehicles must have left the footstreets before 10.30am and must not arrive until after 5.00pm. The Shambles allows loading before 10.30am and after 5.00pm; Stonegate only between 5.00am and 10.30am; Fossgate only in designated areas. Residents inside the zone have no exemption. The council's advice is to keep the vehicle outside the area if you need to make journeys during footstreet hours. Anyone else who needs to drive in during the hours applies for city centre vehicle access at least five working days ahead, or two hours in an emergency.
The bollards are hostile-vehicle measures, and the way they arrived matters here. Blue Badge holders lost city-centre vehicle access in June 2020, and in November 2021 councillors made that permanent — the York Disability Rights Forum recorded that it was done despite extensive objections from disabled people, and people affected said they had been made to feel like second-class citizens. The decision was reversed in October 2023, and access resumed on 4 January 2024 through the two staffed entries above. YDRF's own summary is that access has been returned to Blue Badge holders "in part". That is the accurate description, and it is the one to keep in mind reading this page: two staffed routes in a bollarded zone is not the same as being able to drive where you need to go.
The bollards go up at 10.30am, so an errand that needs the car is an errand before 10.30am or after 5.00pm. During the Christmas market that second window moves to 7.00pm.
On 12 May 2026 the council's Executive agreed to trial a six-day Christmas market in 2026, closed on Tuesdays, running 10.30am to 7.00pm on the days it opens. During the market a temporary order extends the vehicle restriction to 7.00pm rather than 5.00pm.
On the Tuesday rest days the stalls close and Blue Badge access runs through the Goodramgate, King's Square and Colliergate loop only — not Blake Street — with additional temporary hostile-vehicle measures on Church Street, Low Petergate and King's Square.
The market's exact start and end dates were not published when this page was last checked. A further report is due early in 2027.
www.york.gov.uk/news/article/1879/rest-day-to-be-trialled-at-york-s-christmas-market
There are three sets of bays inside the footstreets, none of them time-limited: Blake Street between McDonald's and St Helen's Square, two vehicles, from 10.30am to 6.00am the next day. Lendal outside the old Post Office, one vehicle, same hours. Davygate outside Betty's, two vehicles, but only from 5.00pm to 6.00am.
Just outside: Piccadilly up to nine cars, Duncombe Place seven, Dundas Street five, Carmelite Street two, St Saviourgate two, and both sides of Tower Street by the Hilton.
www.york.gov.uk/accessible-parking-1/blue-badge-parking-york/4
Blue Badge holders park free in every council car park in York with no time limit — except Marygate, where a pay-on-foot barrier trial means the free bays are outside the barrier. Drive through it and you pay on exit by number plate.
Two more edge cases: Foss Bank is free only until 8.00pm, when it locks, and at Nunnery Lane the car-club and electric-charging bays are not available to Blue Badge holders.
www.york.gov.uk/accessible-parking-1/blue-badge-parking-york/3
Source: City of York Council's footstreets, city centre access and Blue Badge parking pages, and the Executive decision of 12 May 2026 on the Christmas market, checked 30 July 2026 (today).
Getting in on foot: About five minutes on the flat to Coppergate and the Shambles. There are Blue Badge bays beside the car park with no time limit, and 30 inside it — more than any other council car park in York.
Booking: No booking. Pay at the machine or by phone — paying by phone adds a 15p service charge, and 20p per confirmation text. Open 24 hours; charges apply 8.00am to midnight, every day including Sundays and bank holidays. No height limit.