Student parking

A valid parking permit will allow you to park in bays marked Approved University Permit Holder. Permits are not valid in the following areas:

• Disabled parking bays – including the pay-to-park bays on the David Weatherall car park
• Pay-to-park areas
• Pre-booked Visitor (C4) carpark
• Family friendly spaces before 9.15am
• Science Park and Innovation Centres car park 
• Residential areas around campus where residential permits must be displayed
• Event Permit Only car parks
• Health Centre car park
• Sports Centre specific bays

Please make sure you always check the signage to ensure you are in a permitted permit holder area.

If you don’t have a permit but need to bring your car onto campus, you can park it in one of our pay to park areas – you'll find these around campus, in areas including outside the Students’ Union, by David Weatherall Building, and on car park A3 – the large car park behind the Business School.

Parking is free after 5pm and on weekends – so if you need to come onto campus to study in the Library or for an extra-curricular activity like sports training, you can park for free!

The cost of a student parking permit for each academic year is £105.00.

In order to be eligible to apply for a permit, you must be in one or more of the following groups:

1. Students with health issues that restrict their use of public transport
2. Registered Blue Badge Holders (although the permit is free, you will still need to apply)
3. Students registered on the Sports Centre’s Talented Athlete Programme
4. Non resident students with principal caring responsibilities ie: parent of a child in pre-school childcare or in primary school and/or registered carer for a partner or relative
5. Student society or club members who look after club equipment that has to be stored off campus
6. Students who serve in the British Armed Forces reserves
7. Students living on campus who have to travel from the campus to their placement – where the placement:
   • Occurs outside of a 1 hour journey radius; or
   • Starts or finishes when public transport is not operating; or
   • Starts or finishes at a time when only private transport will assist the student in meeting both placement and academic requirements
8. Students studying Music at Keele and transporting a large instrument to campus
9. Commuter students - those who live off campus with journey time over 1 hour on public transport or where the journey cannot be made by public transport.  Priority is given to those living in the family home. 

Please note commuter students are not automatically entitled to a parking permit.

For all permit categories we will need to see evidence of your eligibility in order to consider your application.

New for 2024/25

Keele students who study or attend placement at UHNS Hospital may be entitled to free parking when on Keele campus.  To qualify for this you must provide evidence of holding a permit for the hospital site. 

Order of allocation

We will allocate permits to those who are eligible under categories 1 - 9 (see above). Commuter student applications (new and continuing) will only be considered after new students have had the opportunity to apply for their permit under one of the other criteria.

Once the first round of permits have been allocated, we will then allocate the remaining permits to commuter students starting with those living furthest away from the campus, until we reach the maximum number of permits we are able to allocate. The distance to the campus will be based on Google Maps public transport travel time.

We will let you know by email to your Keele account if your application has been approved and request payment (except blue badge which is free).

Please note: Your permit won’t be valid until payment has been received. Please do not park on campus until you have received a second email explaining that your application is fully approved.

Please note that possession of a permit does not guarantee that there will be a central parking space on campus. On busier days you may need to park further from the centre of campus. 

Please make sure you always park in vacant, marked parking bays – parking anywhere else could put you or others in danger.

If your application for a parking permit is unsuccessful, you have the right to appeal this decision on one or both of the following grounds:

1. Procedural irregularity in the application of the criteria for allocation of student parking permits as set out on www.keele.ac.uk/parking/studentparking;
2. Exceptional hardship factors which are not covered by the criteria for the allocation of student parking permits, providing that these circumstances can be substantiated and there is a valid reason why these were not made known at the time of the original application.

Appeals should be raised from the Student Parking Portal as directed in the email informing you that your application was unsuccessful.

Appeals will be considered in the first instance by a Senior Manager, who has not already seen your application. They may uphold or reject the appeal based on the evidence supplied, usually within 10 working days of the time it was submitted.

Where the manager is unable to reach a decision, your appeal will be referred to the Parking Panel which will make its decision within three weeks of the submission of the appeal. The membership of the Parking Panel will consist of at least 3 members but will not include any officer of the University previously involved with consideration of the original application or the appeal.

To apply for a parking permit, please click here. Only applications from Keele email accounts will be considered.

Car parking information for Vet School students

You are encouraged to use public transport where possible to support a green transport plan. In addition there will be a coach service to transport you between campuses departing from the host campus in the morning and returning in the evening on days when you need to study at your non-host institution.

You are allowed to make your own travel arrangements on travel days, but please bear in mind that car parking at both campuses is restricted. Keele parking permits are only valid at Keele; if you want to park at Harper Adams, you will need to also apply for a permit for Harper.

At Keele we have hundreds of pay to park spaces around campus, including on the Plot 7 car park (car park A3) which is behind the Vet School building. If you are not regularly parking at Keele campus you might prefer to pay to park on an ad-hoc basis in one of these spaces, rather than purchasing a permit.

Keele University permits

At Keele, parking permits are limited and applications are reviewed based on a range of criteria. Vet School students will be considered under the University’s criteria for placement students in order to determine their eligibility for a parking permit.

Keele University applications are made through the Parking Portal Please note: this is different to Harper Adams applications which are made through eVision.

The car park located behind the Vet School building is mixed use – some spaces are for Science Park permit holders, and others are for University permit holders. Please ensure you park in the right bay to avoid tickets.  

The closest pay to park car park to the Vet School is Plot 7 car park (car park A3).

You can find out more about parking at Keele University here.

Parking at Harper Adams University

Currently students are able to apply for a parking permit at Harper Adams, with no restrictions.

If you wish to park your car on Campus you will need to apply for an electronic permit. In the interest of security all students wishing to park on the University campus must ensure their vehicle(s) are registered and that their details are kept up to date.

Once requested an electronic record of your car will be held. Individuals registering vehicle details are expected to comply with the Harper Adams Motor Vehicles, Car Parking Policy and Regulations. These can be found here.

Car parking enforcement at Harper Adams University is run by First Parking LLC. The only information that we share with them is the vehicle registration information, along with the dates that the permit is valid for and which car parks the registered vehicle is authorised to park in.

To register or delete a vehicle or to check the vehicle details that are held for you, log in to Keele e-vision and select ‘information’ from the drop down menu on the home page.