Booking software for councils.
Run every council asset from one council booking system — halls, sports facilities, meeting rooms and market stalls. Take bookings and card payments online, raise invoices in bulk, sell event tickets, and keep a full audit trail of who did what.
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BOOK-318Sat 16 MayPendingVillage Hall60th birthday party
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BOOK-317Fri 15 MayConfirmedTennis courtsInstant booking
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BOOK-316Fri 15 MayApprovedCommittee RoomPlanning meeting
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BOOK-315Thu 14 MayConfirmedMarket stall 4Saturday market
One platform, three kinds of asset.
Most councils manage a mix of indoor rooms, sports facilities and outdoor spaces. LemonBooking handles all three from one system, one customer list, one set of accounts.
Room hire
From village halls and parish rooms to scout huts and pavilions — let residents check availability and book online, with deposit and approval rules per space. Running a single hall? See our village hall booking system.
- Community centres & village halls
- Committee & meeting rooms
- Scout huts & pavilions
- Take refundable deposits
Sports facilities
Tennis courts, football pitches, MUGAs and bowling greens — with peak / off-peak rates, season memberships and pay-and-play card payments on the spot.
- Tennis & netball courts, MUGAs
- Football, cricket & rugby pitches
- Bowling greens & pavilions
- Pay-and-play with one-time pin codes
Parks & outdoor spaces
Sell pitches for the weekly market, hire out the bandstand for a charity fete, or book the park for an event — with capacity limits and conflict checks built in.
- Market stalls & fete pitches
- Bandstands & park gazebos
- Parks & community gardens
- Beach huts
- Capacity limits & conflict checks
9am to 9pm. Boardroom set-up included.
- Projector, screen & Wi-Fi
- Tea & coffee on arrival
- Step-free access
Auto-confirmed. Code emailed 30 min before play.
- Net & line markings included
- Floodlights from 6pm
- One-time gate access code
Mains power & lighting included. Gated load-in.
- Capacity 200 standing
- Power & lighting included
- £100 refundable deposit
A local government booking system for councils of any size.
Whether your council lets a single hall or runs community centres, sports pitches, parks and market stalls across the whole area, the basics are the same: a live calendar, a booking form residents can use, card payments and invoices that reconcile. LemonBooking is council booking software that scales from one venue to many.
Every council venue
A calendar and booking form for each hall, pitch, park and room, with roles for each team and cost codes for internal departments. Running a large estate of venues? See our venue management software.
Accountable by design
An audit log of every approval, invoice and refund, income and occupancy reports for the finance committee, and WCAG-compliant booking pages for every resident.
Bought the public-sector way
Card payments through the provider the council already uses — GOV.UK Pay, Civica, Pay360 or Access PaySuite — and a G-Cloud 15 listing, so you can buy without a full tender.
Card payments
LemonBooking can seamlessly integrate with a number of council-focused payment providers including Access PaySuite, Civica, GOV.UK Pay, Worldpay and Pay360.
- Auto-send a payment link with each booking approval.
- Take card payments with the provider you already use.
- Take and return refundable deposits automatically.
Invoice all your regulars in one run.
Bowls club every Tuesday, the playgroup every weekday morning, the market traders every Saturday — generate a month's invoices for all your regular hirers in a single run, then send or download them in one go.
- Generate invoices for regular customers in bulk.
- Download as PDFs or export to CSV for your records.
- Automated reminders chase the ones that fall overdue.
| Regular hirer | Sessions | Total |
|---|---|---|
Pepperton Bowls Club Tuesdays · Village Hall |
4 | £120 |
Little Acorns Playgroup Weekday mornings |
20 | £450 |
Saturday market traders Stalls 1–12 |
4 | £360 |
Officers, councillors and a clear paper trail.
Give the bookings officer, councillors and the caretaker exactly the access each needs — admin, editor or view-only — then switch on the audit log so every approval, cancellation, invoice and refund is recorded against a named user. The accountability a public body's booking software is expected to show.
- Roles for the bookings officer, councillors and caretaker.
- Audit log of every approval, invoice and refund.
- An evidence trail for full-council meetings and the annual audit.
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Ticketing Access to events & ticketing only
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Assistant View-only access to customers, bookings, invoices & payments
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Editor Can update the website, add activities & post blog articles
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Manager Has full access to customers, bookings, invoices & payments
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Admin Has access to all customer data & system settings
Accessible to every resident who books.
As a public body, your council has a legal duty to make its online services usable by everyone. The website, calendar, booking form and event pages LemonBooking produces are all WCAG compliant, so you satisfy your Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 obligations out of the box — no extra plug-ins, audits or accessibility consultants.
- Keyboard-navigable calendar and booking form
- Screen-reader friendly labels, headings and ARIA states
- AA-grade colour contrast, scalable text and focus rings
- In-line, descriptive error messages on every form
- Accessibility statement template you can publish
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Pass2.1.1 KeyboardAll functionality available via keyboard
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Pass1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)Text contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
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Pass3.3.1 Error IdentificationErrors clearly identified in text
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Pass4.1.2 Name, Role, ValueComponents exposed to assistive tech
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Pass2.4.7 Focus VisibleClear focus indicator on every control
Income & usage, in real time.
See at a glance how every council asset is performing — income and occupancy across halls, sports pitches and courts, committee rooms and market stalls — ready for the next finance committee or annual report.
- Income and occupancy per facility and date range.
- Check which assets are covering their costs.
- CSV exports for the finance committee or annual report.
Trusted by councils up and down the country
Customer review from Trustpilot
“The system has worked really well for our Parish Council for event tickets and venue booking. The system is straight forward to setup and use and any queries are quickly responded to.”
Standards your IT department will approve of.
Councils handle residents' data and public money, so your booking system has to stand up to procurement questions and data-protection checks. LemonBooking keeps your data in a UK data centre, is GDPR compliant and Cyber Essentials certified, and is registered with the ICO.
Don't just take our word for it — read our reviews on Trustpilot.
Buy us through the G-Cloud framework.
LemonBooking is now available on the UK Government's G-Cloud 15 framework. Your council can procure LemonBooking directly through the Digital Marketplace under Lot 2b (Software as a Service): a compliant route on the framework's standard, pre-agreed terms, faster than running a full tender and with less for your legal and procurement teams to review.
- Supplier
- Tectonic Software ApS
- Lot
- 2b · SaaS
The framework agreement is held by Tectonic Software ApS, the company that owns LemonBooking, and you'll find us on the Digital Marketplace listed as LemonBooking.
Collect the paperwork with the booking, not after it.
Add your own questions to the booking form and make the ones that matter required, so a hirer cannot submit a request without them. Ask for a public liability insurance certificate, a safeguarding policy, a risk assessment, confirmation of DBS checks for anyone working with children — whatever your hire agreement asks for.
Uploads are stored against the booking, so your bookings officer checks them at approval and can find them again a year later when the insurer, the trustees or an inspector asks.
- Required file uploads — no certificate, no booking.
- Different questions on different forms, so a one-off party is asked less than a weekly children’s class.
- Conditional questions, so bouncy castles, alcohol or catering trigger their own follow-ups.
- Your own policies and risk assessments live in the document manager, each with an owner and a review date that prompts them by email.
Illustrative booking form.
Work out whether Martyn’s Law applies to you.
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 — Martyn’s Law — catches premises where 200 or more people could be present at once. Plenty of council-run buildings sit comfortably below that and are out of scope entirely. The duties are not in force yet; they are expected to apply from 2027, overseen by the Security Industry Authority.
Either way the first job is the same: know your realistic maximum, and know how many people actually come through the door. A council running several buildings has to answer this for each one. Capacities live against the rooms and the attendance figures against the bookings, so the paperwork for one hall does not mean opening a spreadsheet for the rest.
Martyn’s Law for council-run buildings: read our guideA heads-up, not legal advice. Check the official guidance before you act on it.
- Main hall
- 180
- Committee room
- 40
- Realistic maximum at once
- 220
Illustrative figures.
Frequently asked questions
Anything we haven't covered, drop us a line.
Is there free council booking software?
There's a 30-day free trial of the whole system with no card required, but it isn't free forever — running and supporting a council booking system has real costs. Plans start low, and the trial lets you try everything with your real venues before you commit a penny.
How much does council booking software cost?
Plans start at £360 a year for Silver, billed annually. Councils start on Silver because it adds invoicing and payment reconciliation. Your website, hosting and SSL are included, as are email support and the online help centre, and there are no set-up fees. Councils running many venues pay more for each extra system; the pricing page sets out what each plan covers. Card fees, where you take card payments, go to the payment provider rather than to us.
How do councils manage venue bookings?
Most councils now take venue bookings online. Residents and groups check a live calendar and book or send a request, and the council approves, invoices and reports from one system. LemonBooking does this with the council’s own payment provider, bulk invoicing for regular hirers and an audit log of every change.
What is council booking software?
Council booking software lets residents, clubs and community groups book council-run halls, sports facilities, rooms and outdoor spaces online, while council staff approve, invoice and report from one system. LemonBooking adds the council’s own payment provider, bulk invoicing, role-based access and an audit log.
Can one system handle halls, sports facilities, meeting rooms and market stalls?
Yes — manage all your council assets in one place: halls and community centres, indoor and outdoor sports facilities, meeting rooms and market stalls, each with its own calendar, pricing and booking form.
Can some facilities be booked instantly and others need approval?
Yes — set up multiple booking forms with different rules. Let residents book a tennis court instantly, while a hall hire for a party goes through to the bookings officer for approval first.
Can residents pay by card, and can we return deposits?
Yes — connect GOV.UK Pay, Access PaySuite, Civica, or Pay360 to take payment from a link on the invoice. Refundable deposits can be returned automatically once the booking is over.
Can we bulk-invoice regular hirers?
Yes — generate invoices for repeat and regular customers in one run and import them into your accounting package with a few clicks, instead of raising each one by hand.
Can we control who has access, with an audit trail?
Yes — assign different roles, and use the audit log so every approval, cancellation, invoice and refund is recorded. Straightforward controls for data-privacy compliance.
Can we have rooms or facilities that are only available for staff to book?
Yes — a space can be kept off the public booking calendar and reserved for internal use only. The council chamber or a staff-only room never appears to residents; the bookings officer and staff book it from the back office instead. You decide which spaces are public and which are internal.
Can the bookings officer and councillors manage bookings on the move?
Yes — LemonBooking runs in any web browser, so the bookings officer and councillors can approve bookings, raise invoices and check the calendar from a phone, tablet or laptop, in the office or out and about. There's no app to download and nothing for the council's IT to install, patch or roll out across devices — everyone simply signs in.
Ready to bring your council's bookings online?
30 days free. No card required. We help you set up your facilities, booking rules and payment provider so you're not starting from a blank page. We have templates for importing calendar data too.
Related pages
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