We move students, families and flats across CF14, from the Talybont blocks off Excelsior Road to the houses around North Road and College Road. Runs into Cathays, Heath or the city centre take minutes, so most of the cost is the carry rather than the drive.
No parking scheme here, yet
Gabalfa has no residents' parking scheme in force. That is unusual this close to the centre and it makes a move simpler: the van stops where it can legally stop, loads, and goes, with no permit to arrange and no bay to suspend.
That is going to change, though not soon. Cabinet approved the City Parking Plan on 16 October 2025 and it runs over ten years, in phases of up to three years, three to six and six to ten. At consultation the plan set out four management areas and named Gabalfa in the Outer one, managed from 8am to 6pm on residential, visitor, community, business, carer and school permits. Each zone needs its own traffic regulation order and the council says each one can take up to 18 months, with the dense inner terraces first: Cathays, Plasnewydd, Riverside, Adamsdown and Grangetown. The council set the areas out in its parking plan consultation.
- Today: no permit needed, ordinary loading rules apply.
- Approved: managed 8am to 6pm, permits only, in the Outer area.
- Timing: one traffic order per zone, up to 18 months each, inner terraces first.
Term dates set the traffic
Cardiff University's Talybont residences are in Gabalfa, and they are the largest the university has: close to 3,000 students across four blocks. For most of the year that is invisible. For about six days it is not.
Arrivals for 23 September contracts run to 27 September, and the move out lands in the last fortnight of June, when the room has to be empty whether or not the next house is ready and the contents often go into storage for the summer. On those days the approach roads carry a steady stream of cars and vans, and the university's temporary unloading spaces are limited to 45 minutes. If your own move is nearby and flexible, avoid those dates. If it is not, we plan around them.
Llandaf station solves the extra car
The station that serves Gabalfa is Llandaf, on Station Road, CF14 2EZ. It has 99 free parking spaces including six accessible ones, open around the clock, plus 26 cycle spaces. Platform 1 is reached step-free by a footbridge with lifts, and Platform 2 is step-free from the car park.
On moving day that free car park is the practical answer to the question nobody plans for: where the second car goes while the van is being loaded. Transport for Wales lists the current facilities on its Llandaf station page.
New homes on the way
In September 2025 the council announced the Cardiff and Vale Housing Partnership with the Vale of Glamorgan and Lovell, covering around 2,500 homes across 25 sites, about 1,600 of them council homes. Seventeen of those sites are in Cardiff and Gabalfa is one of them.
New build means a different kind of move: a driveway rather than a kerb fight, but often a shared access road and a delivery schedule to work around. Tell us if you are moving into a plot rather than an established street and we will check the access first.
What a Gabalfa move costs
A room's worth of boxes and a few bits usually lands between £85 to £150, and a full room of furniture and boxes between £130 to £220. Open-ended jobs can be charged hourly instead, at £45 an hour for one person and a van or £65 for two, with a 2 hour minimum.
Because parking is straightforward here, a Gabalfa job is usually quicker than the same load in Cathays, where a permit bay has to be dealt with first. Every band we quote from is published rather than given over the phone.