Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth: Shops, Parking, Directions and Opening Times

A waterfront outlet centre built on the Royal Navy's old ordnance yard, with more than 90 outlet stores, 35-odd places to eat and one thing you should know before you set off: the parking is paid, and Blue Badge holders pay too. Here is what Landsec publishes about the site, what the car park operator publishes about the tariff, and — because the operator's own hours page gave us nothing at all — a good deal about what nobody publishes.

Last checked 5 September 2026 · Opening times and store lists change — check with the centre before travelling.

Gunwharf Quays sits on the Portsmouth waterfront, right at the mouth of the harbour, a few minutes from Portsmouth Harbour station and in sight of the Spinnaker Tower. It opened in February 2001, which makes 2026 its twenty-fifth year, and it is owned outright by Landsec. The operator describes it as more than 90 outlet stores and more than 35 bars, restaurants and cafes, and that is the operator's own count — we found no independent tally to set beside it.

The single most important thing on this page is the parking. Almost every outlet centre in Britain gives you free parking as a matter of course. Gunwharf Quays does not. The car parks are run by APCOA, they charge around the clock, and — unusually, and worth repeating — the charge applies to Blue Badge holders as well. There are designated Blue Badge bays, 35 of them on Level UB and another 12 at the Wickham Street overflow, but a badge does not buy you a free stay here. If you have driven to outlet centres before and assumed parking is free, unlearn that for this one trip.

The second thing to know is that we cannot tell you when it opens on a weekday. Landsec's opening-hours page for Gunwharf Quays is rendered by JavaScript and returns an empty body to us; so does its getting-here page. The only opening times we could read from the operator anywhere are the Sunday hours. We have printed those and left the rest of the table honestly blank rather than filling it with a guess. Ring 023 9283 6700 before a long journey.

What follows is drawn from Landsec's own pages where they were readable, APCOA's car park listing for the tariff and the height limits, AccessAble's access guide, Visit Hampshire for the transport links the operator's own page would not give up, trade and local press for the arrivals and departures, and the naval and municipal record for the history. Where two sources disagree, both are printed. Where nothing could be verified, we say so.

The essentials

Opening times

Checked 5 September 2026, and this is the thinnest hours table on the site — deliberately. Gunwharf Quays has an opening-hours page. It is rendered by JavaScript and returns an empty body to us, exactly as White Rose does; both are Landsec centres and both behave the same way. We could not read a weekday table, a Saturday time, or the centre's Christmas page. Rather than borrow times from a tenant or from a third-party listing and present them as the centre's, we have left those rows blank and said why.

The one thing the operator does publish, and which we could read, is the Sunday arrangement: larger stores trade 11am to 5pm on Sundays and are closed on Easter Sunday. The operator names the stores it means — Adidas, Boots, Marks & Spencer, Nike Unite, Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Superdry. Smaller units are not bound by Sunday trading law in the same way and may well open longer, but the operator does not say what they do.

For Christmas and New Year we found exactly one set of times: a 2022 post from the centre's own social media account. That is four years out of date and we are not going to reuse it. If you are travelling any distance, or coming on a bank holiday or over Christmas, phone 023 9283 6700 first. Restaurant and bar hours are a separate question again — this is a waterfront with a late-night trade, the eateries certainly do not keep shop hours, and the operator publishes nothing about how the two differ.

Getting there

By road

Use the postcode PO1 3TZ. Neither Landsec nor Portsmouth City Council publishes a motorway junction number for Gunwharf Quays, so we are not going to supply one. Portsmouth sits at the end of the M275 spur off the M27, the approach runs through the city centre one-way system, and a junction number we invented would be worse than none at all. Follow the postcode and then the brown signs.

Parking — and read this bit

Parking here is paid, and it is paid by everyone. The car parks are operated by APCOA and charge 24 hours a day. The published tariff starts at around £3.50 for two hours on a weekday and £3.70 at a weekend, rises to roughly £12.80 to £12.90 for a seven-to-nine hour stay, £16.50 for nine to ten hours, and £28.00 for ten to twenty-four hours. Lose your ticket and you are charged for a full day. Tariffs change; treat these as the shape of the thing rather than a promise.

Blue Badge holders are charged the same as everyone else. That is unusual enough that it catches people out, and it is the single most common reason someone arrives at Gunwharf Quays annoyed. There are 35 designated Blue Badge bays on Level UB of the main car park and a further 12 at the Wickham Street overflow — designated, near the lifts, but not free.

The height limits are low. The main car park is restricted to 2.20m and the Wickham Street overflow (PO1 3EF) to 1.98m, per APCOA. A roof box, a roof-mounted bike rack, a high-top camper or most panel vans will not clear either. This used to matter less because the open-air Park Road car park took coaches and tall vehicles — but Park Road has been closed for redevelopment since 2024, and the only reopening date published for it is the vague "2025/26". As of our check it had not reopened. If you are driving anything tall, or bringing a coach party, ring the centre on 023 9283 6700 and ask where to put it before you set off.

There are four Pod Point electric vehicle charge points in the main car park. Nobody publishes what they cost to use.

By train

Portsmouth Harbour is the station, and it is the one you want — not Portsmouth & Southsea. The walk is described as "five minutes", but we should be straight with you about where that comes from: it is Visit Hampshire's wording, not the operator's. Landsec's own getting-here page is JavaScript-rendered and gave us nothing, so we have no operator-published walking time or distance to offer. Portsmouth Harbour is the terminus of the line from London Waterloo via Guildford and from Southampton, so trains run in and out frequently.

By ferry, hovercraft and boat

This is genuinely one of the better-connected shopping trips in the country, because the harbour is right there.

• Gosport Ferry — the pontoon is, per Visit Hampshire, right by Portsmouth Harbour station, so the crossing from Gosport puts you a few minutes' walk away.
• Wightlink — the foot passenger terminal for the Isle of Wight service is within walking distance, which makes Gunwharf Quays a realistic day out from Ryde.
• Hovertravel — Visit Hampshire records a free bus transfer between the hovercraft terminal at Southsea and the harbour area. We have not been able to confirm the route number, the frequency or the operator of that transfer from any source, so ask at the terminal.

By bus and coach

The Hard Interchange bus station is immediately adjacent, which is about as good as bus access gets. What we cannot give you is any route number: we could not verify a single bus route serving the site from the operator, the council or the bus companies, and we would rather admit that than list routes we have not checked. For coaches, the Park Road lot that used to take them is closed, so phone ahead.

Accessibility

Guest Services offers Shopmobility, along with pushchair hire and — a nice waterfront touch — umbrella hire. One third-party listing describes the mobility service as "bookable only" rather than walk-up; the operator does not say either way, so book if you can.

The step-free position, the lifts, and the Blue Badge bay locations are covered by AccessAble's guide, which is also the source of the 1,526-space figure for the main underground car park. Beyond that, several things a disabled or older visitor would reasonably want to know are simply not on the record: we could not confirm whether there is a Changing Places toilet, baby-changing facilities, a quiet or prayer room, or lockers. That is not us saying there are none. It is us saying nobody publishes it, and Guest Services on 023 9283 6700 is the way to find out.

The shops

Landsec's own figure is more than 90 outlet stores and more than 35 bars, restaurants and cafes. We found no independent count to test it against, and we did not count the directory ourselves, so take it as the operator's claim rather than a verified number.

Oliver Bonas — the story worth knowing

If one shop explains what Gunwharf Quays is doing at the moment, it is this one. Oliver Bonas chose Gunwharf Quays for the first outlet store it has ever opened. It arrived as a pop-up on The Avenues on Saturday 19 July 2025, traded through the year, and on 23 June 2026 the lease was made permanent — moving into a unit around 400 sq ft larger, opposite Michael Kors. It remains, as far as we can establish, the brand's only outlet store in the UK. For a centre competing with Bicester and Cheshire Oaks, landing a brand's first-ever outlet is the kind of thing that gets a centre director quoted in the local paper, and it did.

Pop-ups that stayed

• Mulberry — 1,466 sq ft, opposite Kate Spade, pop-up lease extended by six months in June 2026.
• Citizen — pop-up lease also extended by six months in June 2026.
• Tommy Hilfiger — added a nine-month womenswear and kidswear pop-up beside its existing menswear store.

Three pop-ups converting or extending in the same month is a reasonable signal that the temporary-lease strategy is working here, and it is what the centre director was talking about in the local press in June 2026.

Others reported as arriving

Mountain Warehouse — signage for what is described as its first Portsmouth store has been spotted on site, but we could not date the story or the opening, so we have not given a month. A Portsmouth FC club store is also reported on site; again, we could not confirm the year it opened.

What has gone

Russell & Bromley closed on 15 April 2026. The context is national rather than local: Next bought the Russell & Bromley brand for £2.5m and kept only the Chelsea and Mayfair shops and one store in Kent out of the 33 that were at risk. Gunwharf Quays was one of the 30 that went. That is the only closure we were able to confirm here.

The cinema

There is a Vue cinema at Gunwharf Quays, but we should flag how we know: the only sourcing we could find for it is third-party — cinema listings rather than anything Landsec publishes in a page we could read. We are confident it exists; we simply could not confirm it from the operator, so if the film is the reason for the trip, check Vue's own site for times.

Useful to know

Eating and drinking

Landsec counts more than 35 bars, restaurants and cafes, which is a very high proportion for an outlet centre and is really the point of the place — it is a waterfront evening destination as much as a shopping one. What we cannot give you is how late any of it stays open, because the operator publishes no restaurant hours we could read and nothing about how they differ from shop hours. Assume the bars run considerably later than the shops and check the individual venue.

Dogs

The dog policy we found for Gunwharf Quays comes from a 2022 statement and we are labelling it as such rather than presenting it as current. Four-year-old policies get quietly revised. If you are bringing a dog, ring Guest Services and ask what today's rule is.

Hire and services at Guest Services

Shopmobility, pushchair hire and umbrella hire are all offered through Guest Services. One third-party listing says the mobility service is bookable only, so treat it as something to arrange in advance.

Things nobody publishes

This is a longer list than we would like, and every item on it is something an ordinary visitor might reasonably want to know before setting out. We could not verify any of the following from the operator or from a source we would cite: a Changing Places toilet; baby-changing facilities; visitor lockers; cash machines; a prayer or quiet room; click-and-collect; cycle parking; a taxi rank; gift-card terms; or the cost of using the EV chargers. Guest Services on 023 9283 6700 is the answer to all of them.

If you are driving, in one paragraph

Parking is paid and Blue Badge holders pay. The main car park is 2.20m high, the Wickham Street overflow is 1.98m, and the open-air Park Road lot that took tall vehicles has been closed since 2024. Losing your ticket costs you a full day's tariff. None of that is a reason not to come — it is a reason to arrive knowing it.

How it got here

Gunwharf Quays has by far the best history of any outlet centre in Britain, and most of it has nothing to do with shopping. The clue is in the name: this was the Gun Wharf, the Royal Navy's ordnance yard for Portsmouth, where the fleet's guns, powder and stores were held.

The land itself is man-made. In the early 1700s roughly 60,000 square yards of mudflat were reclaimed here, pushing the shoreline out by around 350 yards. If you are standing outside a shop on the water's edge, you are standing on ground that was tidal mud three hundred years ago.

The site was split between the Army and the Navy in 1888, and reunited under the Admiralty in 1915. A Mines School was established here in 1919, and from 1923 the site was HMS Vernon — the Royal Navy's torpedo and mine warfare establishment. The torpedo branch it grew out of had itself been commissioned in April 1876. HMS Vernon worked on the preparations for D-Day, and it remained an operational naval establishment until it ceased to be an independent command on 31 March 1986, when it was absorbed into HMS Nelson.

The civilian afterlife followed quickly. Portsmouth City Council issued a development brief in 1995. In 1998 the Berkeley Festival Waterfront Company bought the 32-acre site. The first residents moved in during 1999, and the retail opened in February 2001 — which is why 2026 is being marked as the centre's twenty-fifth year.

Ownership consolidated in December 2003, when Land Securities bought out its co-owner on 3 December for £170m and took the scheme to 100%. We could not establish who that co-owner was — the identity is not in any source we could reach, and we are not going to guess at it. Landsec has held it ever since; no sale has been reported between 2023 and 2026.

The current chapter is a £45m two-phase reinvestment. Phase one, "The Avenues", was consented in August 2023 with works starting in early 2024 — that is the run of units where Oliver Bonas took its first-ever outlet as a pop-up in July 2025. Phase two, "Marlborough Square", was submitted to Portsmouth City Council on 14 December 2023 and covers the waterfront: terraces, al-fresco dining, new shopfronts, public realm, a new staircase and lift, and improvements to the tunnel that links the site to Portsmouth Harbour station and the Historic Dockyard. The Grade II listed Old Customs House is untouched by the plans. If phase two is approved, the build is expected in early 2027.

Alongside it, a solar array was installed from spring 2024, which Landsec describes in carbon terms as equivalent to planting 5,000 mature trees and as generating enough to power 70 homes.