E-scooter hire in Norwich: Beryl’s prices, the parking bays and where you can ride
You can hire an e-scooter in Norwich from Beryl, the only operator, in a trial that now runs to 31 May 2028. It costs £1 to unlock and 22p a minute, so 10 minutes cost £3.20, and you must be 18 or over with a full or provisional driving licence. End every ride in a Beryl bay or pay £10. The area stretches to Norwich Airport, UEA, Hethersett and Wymondham. Your own e-scooter is illegal on Norwich’s roads and pavements.
Norwich e-scooter hire: Beryl, in a trial that now runs to 2028
One company, Beryl, runs Norwich’s hire e-scooters, alongside its pedal bikes and e-bikes, in a scheme with Norfolk County Council that opened on 17 March 2020. E-scooters joined on 14 September 2020 for the Department for Transport’s rental trial: 100 at first, and 500 by February 2026, the county council says.
On 10 March 2026 Graham Plant, the county council’s cabinet member for highways, extended the trial to 31 May 2028, the date the Department for Transport has set for the end of all 21 trials. Pages that give an earlier end date are out of date.
In the early hours of 17 October 2026 the map of Norwich showed about 550 Beryl e-scooters, and the map of Wymondham 24 more: a snapshot at night, not the fleet size. The map shows e-scooters only, not Beryl’s bikes and e-bikes. You unlock and pay in the Beryl app.
How much does a Beryl e-scooter cost in Norwich?
Beryl charges £1 to unlock and 22p a minute for its e-scooters, in its Norwich pricing guide (July 2026) and its data on 17 October 2026. Minute bundles and the Day Pass work on any Beryl vehicle, with no unlock fee.
| Option | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Pay as you ride | £1 unlock + 22p a minute | 10 minutes £3.20, 20 minutes £5.40, 30 minutes £7.60 |
| 50-minute bundle | £9 | No unlock fees, valid 1 month: 18p a minute |
| 100-minute bundle | £16 | No unlock fees, valid 1 month: 16p a minute |
| 200-minute bundle | £28 | No unlock fees, valid 3 months: 14p a minute |
| 300-minute bundle | £36 | No unlock fees, valid 3 months: 12p a minute |
| Day Pass | £18 | 200 minutes within 24 hours; end every ride in a bay |
You can pause a ride for up to 30 minutes to keep the scooter, but the minutes still count. New to hire scooters? See how to rent an e-scooter.
Students get 25% off bundles and passes, but not pay-as-you-ride, with the code STUDENT26 from September 2026 to 31 July 2027. Your Beryl account must use your university or college email. With the code, the 50-minute bundle costs £6.75.
Are e-scooters legal in Norwich? Age, licence and fines
Hire scooters are legal because Norwich is one of England’s 21 trial areas. Beryl rents them only to riders 18 or over with a full or provisional driving licence (category Q, included in every UK car, moped and motorcycle licence). It checks the front and back of your photocard and a selfie, and it doesn’t accept paper licences.
Visiting? Beryl’s Norwich help pages and its terms ask for a valid UK driving licence. The law also accepts a full EU or EEA licence, or another country’s full licence within 12 months of entering the UK (never a foreign provisional one), but Beryl doesn’t say it takes them here, so verify yours in the app before you travel.
| Rule | What it means | If you break it |
|---|---|---|
| Pavements | Never: use the road and cycle lanes | £50 fixed penalty |
| Pedestrian streets | Walk the scooter | Against Beryl’s terms |
| One rider | No passengers | Against Beryl’s terms |
| Phone | Not in your hand while riding | £200 and 6 points |
| Headphones | No headphones or earbuds | Against Beryl’s rules |
| Drink and drugs | Drink-drive law applies: 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood | Court, a driving ban, possibly prison |
| Speed | Up to 12.5 mph, below the national 15.5 mph | The motor stops helping above that |
| Helmet | Recommended, not compulsory | Beryl warns that riding without one may void its insurance |
Beryl offers free Scoot Happy training, online and face to face, which it launched with the county council. It’s optional: Beryl’s Norwich help pages list only the licence and selfie checks before your first ride. The national rules are in our guide to e-scooter law in the UK.
A private e-scooter is illegal on Norwich’s roads, pavements and cycle lanes and in its parks. Riding one means a £300 fixed penalty and 6 points for having no insurance, and the police can seize it; since 29 June 2026 they can seize a vehicle ridden anti-socially without a warning first. Anti-social riding on Beryl’s own scooters earns a warning or a ban from Beryl, the county council says.
Where can you ride? The Beryl zone and the pedestrian streets
Beryl’s zone covers Norwich, including the airport, UEA, the Norwich Research Park and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, and reaches south-west to Hethersett and Wymondham and north-west to Drayton. That is how we read Beryl’s zone data on 17 October 2026; the app shows the boundary, with the area outside it in red. Taverham village and Easton are outside.
Keep the scooter inside the zone: Beryl’s terms don’t allow its e-scooters beyond it. Locking outside costs £20 each time, plus £80 if the scooter is still outside after 24 hours.
Beryl’s terms ban riding on pavements and in pedestrianised areas, and its help pages say to ride only on roads and cycle lanes where bikes are allowed. Beryl publishes no list of slow or no-ride zones for Norwich and its open data has none, so walk the scooter through pedestrian streets and watch these places:
| Where | Riding | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| London Street, Lower Goat Lane | Walk: pedestrianised in 1967 and 1968, the Norwich Society records | Bays on London Street and St Giles Street |
| Gentleman’s Walk, Haymarket, the Royal Arcade and other lanes in the Norwich Lanes | Walk: pedestrian streets on OpenStreetMap | A bay at City Hall |
| Riverside Walk, Marriott’s Way | Only where cycling is signed | Give way to people walking |
| UEA campus | Roads and cycle paths only | Bays across the campus |
| Norwich Airport, the Research Park, the hospital | Normal | Bays at each |
| Hethersett, Wymondham, Drayton | Normal | 4 bays in Hethersett, 12 in Wymondham, more in Drayton |
| Taverham village, Easton | Outside the zone | – |
Beryl Norwich parking: end every ride in a bay
Beryl’s data listed 211 bays on 17 October 2026, all inside the e-scooter zone. In the app they show as rectangles, and during a ride as “P” symbols. Park inside the bay, tap End Journey and wait for the confirmation screen.
Beryl adds these fees to the ride (Norwich pricing guide, July 2026):
- Outside a bay: £10.
- Outside the zone: £20 each time you lock there, plus £80 if the scooter is still outside after 24 hours.
- Left unlocked: £10.
Ride a scooter marked with a star in the app back to a bay and Beryl Bonus gives you 10 minutes’ credit. Norwich has no night curfew: Beryl says its e-scooters here can be hired 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Norwich station, the bus station, the airport, trains and buses
No e-scooters on Greater Anglia trains. It has banned them on all its trains since 1 June 2023, citing the fire risk from their batteries; e-bikes and mobility scooters are exempt. First’s buses don’t take them either: its Eastern Counties conditions of travel (March 2026) say electric scooters “are not permitted to be brought on board”. Ask Konectbus and other bus companies before you travel.
- Norwich station: the bay “Riverside/Norwich Train Station”, with room for 20 vehicles, is about 120 metres from the station entrance.
- Norwich bus station on Surrey Street: a bay about 55 metres away, and ten within 300 metres.
- Norwich Airport: a bay about 65 metres from the terminal, plus one at the airport Park & Ride. The Costessey, Postwick, Sprowston and Thickthorn Park & Ride sites have bays too.
- The cathedral: the Cathedral Quarter bay is about 45 metres from the Erpingham Gate, with two more on Tombland.
- Wymondham station: a bay in the station car park, about 200 metres from the station.
Heading elsewhere? See e-scooter hire in the UK for the other trial areas.
UEA and NUA students
UEA has Beryl bays across its campus, among them the UEA Mobility Hub, the Sports Park and the Sainsbury Centre. We found no UEA rules for riding on campus, so keep to roads and cycle paths.
Norwich University of the Arts is in the city centre: The Halls bay is about 85 metres from its St George’s Street building, and the Norwich Playhouse bay about 130 metres. With the STUDENT26 code, the 100-minute bundle costs £12: 12p a minute with no unlock fees, if you use it within a month.
Did you know?
- London Street was the first existing shopping street in the UK to be pedestrianised, on 17 July 1967, the Norwich Society says. Today you walk your Beryl scooter along it.
- Norwich was a UK first for shared transport. It was the first scheme to offer bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters in one app, Beryl’s chief executive said in a county council release.
- A trial first meant to end in 2021 now runs to 2028. The first 100 e-scooters arrived in September 2020; the trial has been extended ever since, and the fleet reached 500 by February 2026.
- Over 1.2 million e-scooter rides had been made by March 2026, council officers said, with each scooter used 2.4 times a day and an average trip of about two miles.
- Norfolk’s other trial is over. Ginger’s e-scooters in Great Yarmouth launched in March 2021 and were suspended in 2024.
Questions
- When does the Norwich e-scooter trial end?
- On 31 May 2028. Norfolk County Council extended it in March 2026 to the end date the Department for Transport has set for all the national trials.
- How much does a Beryl e-scooter cost in Norwich?
- It costs £1 to unlock and 22p a minute, so a 15-minute ride costs £4.30. Minute bundles, from £9 for 50 minutes, and the £18 Day Pass with 200 minutes cut the price per minute and drop the unlock fee.
- Can I ride a Beryl e-scooter to Wymondham or Norwich Airport?
- Yes. Both are inside Beryl’s zone, as is Hethersett. Norwich Airport has a bay about 65 metres from the terminal, and Wymondham has 12 bays, one of them in the station car park.
- Is there a Beryl student discount in Norwich?
- Yes. The code STUDENT26 gives 25% off minute bundles and riding passes until 31 July 2027, if your Beryl account uses your university or college email. It doesn’t cover pay-as-you-ride trips, and it’s a Beryl-wide offer, not a UEA or NUA deal.
- Can I take an e-scooter on the train or bus in Norwich?
- Not on Greater Anglia’s trains, which have banned e-scooters since 1 June 2023, nor on First’s buses. Ask other bus companies, such as Konectbus, before you travel.
- Can I ride my own e-scooter in Norwich?
- No. As everywhere in the UK, a private e-scooter is illegal on roads, pavements and cycle lanes and in parks. Riding one means a £300 fine and 6 points, and the police can seize it. You may ride one only on private land with the owner’s permission.