Parking Wars in Romsey: From Free-for-All to Fines – Has Waitrose Finally Fixed Its Car Park?

For years, the car park at Waitrose on Alma Road in Romsey operated on what many locals openly called a “joke” system. The unmanned barrier and ticket-stamping routine at the till was so poorly enforced that one regular shopper reported having their ticket checked only once in five years.

The result?

Widespread abuse. Non-shoppers and all-day parkers treated the supermarket bays as free long-stay parking while they headed into town, leaving genuine customers stuck in long queues backing up Alma Road – only to find the car park full and the store relatively quiet.

Waitrose Romsey Manage Katie Slater

In December 2025, everything changed. Waitrose handed enforcement over to a third-party operator (widely reported as Britannia Parking), installing ANPR cameras and bringing in roaming wardens.

The official line from the John Lewis Partnership was that they could no longer afford to run the old barrier system themselves. The maximum stay remained two hours, but this time it was properly policed, with £100 Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) for overstays or procedural slips.

The reaction was swift and loud. Local papers ran headlines about furious customers feeling “hammered” by the new rules, with complaints of poor communication and surprise fines hitting loyal shoppers. Many argued the change was heavy-handed, especially during the transition period when signage was reportedly unclear.

But on the ground, a different story has emerged. Traffic flow on Alma Road has visibly improved. The permanent queues are gone, and spaces are now available even at busy times.

A recent letter to the editor in the Daily Echo and Hampshire Chronicle summed it up neatly: the writer congratulated Waitrose on ditching the old unmanned barrier, noting the clear improvement in congestion and suspecting that many previous “shoppers” had simply been using the car park as overflow while doing other things in town.

Signage warning of a potential £100 charge for over-staying the 2-hour time limit.

With public car parks now filling faster, the suspicion is that a fair chunk of the old abuse has simply relocated.

As one local perspective puts it: the genuine shoppers haven’t disappeared, they’re just not overstaying anymore. Two hours is still generous for a proper weekly shop.

The Next Headache: Chelsea Tractors

With the time-abuse problem largely solved, some drivers are already looking at the next issue: the growing number of oversized SUVs, affectionately (or not) known as “Chelsea tractors”, that struggle to fit neatly into standard UK parking bays designed for smaller cars of previous decades.

These wide, long vehicles can overhang lines, make door-opening difficult for neighbours, and turn tight manoeuvring into a headache, even with better turnover. While an outright ban isn’t on the horizon, the tighter enforcement has highlighted how much space some modern 4x4s consume.

Similar debates are playing out nationwide, with calls for bigger vehicles to face higher charges or stricter parking rules in urban and supermarket settings.

The Bottom Line

The Romsey Waitrose parking saga is a textbook case of a lax system creating its own problems, followed by a sudden crackdown that exposes who was benefiting from the leniency.

For many regular users who stick to the two-hour limit, the car park now actually works as intended. For others who got used to the old freewheeling approach, it feels like a rude awakening.