Stansted Blue Zone Short Stay Parking

[ahenry]

Stansted Airport have a new Blue Zone in their Short Stay car park. On the plus side, you get to park within walking distance of the terminal. I parked there for a couple of days recently, and it cost £2 more than the mid-stay car park, £2 less than the Green zone in the short stay car park, which is 100m closer to the terminal. Its a shiny new car park, with nice new tarmac. They have added it to their WWW site, and paying for it is fine.

There are some downsides though. However, they haven't bothered to do much for some practical details.

The instructions give a post code (which is for the terminal building), and directions to the closest roundabout. They don't then describe how to get to the entrance. The instructions give precise coordinates for the latitude and longitude. However, those are to the middle of the car park, rather than the entrance. There is one sign, but its on the left side of the road, when I knew the car park was to the right, and I was looking to that side.

I pre-booked, and expected to get to the barrier, have it recognise my car number plate and print me a ticket. It didn't. I tried pressing the button to speak to an operator and nothing happened, so I pressed the button to get a ticket. At one of the ticket payment machines, I got to speak to an operator, and they said it would all be fine when I got to leave. It wasn't. I had another 5 minute wait in the cold, whilst they found my booking details.

It would have been as quick to go to the mid stay car park, or less hassle to pay £2 extra for the green zone.

If you do use it, the entrance is at 51.893699N, 0.268961E
https://goo.gl/maps/iDZSmwPm96N2

[Slarti]

A virtual rec for the warning

Slarti

[Dochas]

Thanks for this info about the blue carpark. I almost used it recently but decided to on the green park. This is easy to find and has number plate recognition on both entry and exit. My only complaint is that the exit signs within the car park could be improved I think. But otherwise it's a good place to park.

[ahenry]

I tried this car park again this week.

They still haven't fixed the number plate recognition when you enter the car park. When I drove up, I expected to have instructions about if you have pre-booked, wait for the correct ticket. There are no instructions about this at the barrier, just two buttons. If you press one, you get a ticket that lets you park, but won't let you out again unless you pay again. It is best to do that when you enter the car park, rather than on the way out.

The new car park is at least shown on the PDF map on their WWW site.