Every council car park is free for the first three hours on a Sunday, and free all day on bank holidays. Tariffs, the Enfield Town app trap and permit prices.
Two facts decide most parking in Enfield, and the council keeps them on separate pages.
Council car parks are free on bank holidays. That is stated flatly on the car parks page: “Parking is free on bank holidays in all Enfield Council run car parks.”
On-street is a different matter. The parking restrictions page says the council’s traffic management orders “do not give any concessions for bank holidays” and that normal restrictions apply unless a sign says otherwise. The same page also lists parking in a pay and display bay without a ticket as an offence “except bank holidays”. Those two statements contradict each other, on one page. Read the sign at the bay and do not rely on either.
Council car park tariffs
Every council car park charges Monday to Saturday on the same scale.
| How long | Monday to Saturday |
|---|---|
| Up to 1 hour | £1.60 |
| 1 to 3 hours | £3.10 |
| 3 to 5 hours | £7.10 |
| Over 5 hours | £11.50 |
Sunday is where the two groups split.
| How long, on a Sunday | Enfield Town car parks | Every other car park |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 3 hours | No charge | No charge |
| 3 to 5 hours | £7.10 | No charge |
| Over 5 hours | £11.50 | No charge |
The Sunday trap is in Enfield Town. The first three hours are free only if you use the PayByPhone app and enter the location code shown at the car park. And if you then stay past three hours, the council says payment “for the full stay must be purchased”. You do not pay for the extra two hours. You pay £7.10 for the lot.
Lodge Drive in Palmers Green and Fords Grove in Winchmore Hill give the first 45 minutes free, Monday to Friday, either through the app or from the ticket machine.
Which car parks, and where
The council’s own map is an address lookup rather than a list. Its 2024/25 parking annual report names them.
Paid car parks:
- Church Lane, Enfield Town
- Little Park Gardens, Enfield Town
- Sydney Road, Enfield Town
- New River Loop, Enfield Town
- Palace Gardens multi-storey, Enfield Town
- Genotin Road, Enfield Town, evenings and weekends only
- Eagle House, Ponders End
- Lion Road, Edmonton Green
- Raynham Road, Upper Edmonton
- Lodge Drive, Palmers Green
- Minchenden, Southgate
- Fords Grove, Winchmore Hill
Free car parks: Glyn Road in Ponders End and Turkey Street. Those two are free at all times, not free-for-an-hour.
Two closed during 2024/25 and are not coming back: Claverings and Fairfield Road. The annual report footnotes it.
The busiest by a distance are Sydney Road and Little Park Gardens, at 75,986 and 59,121 paid sessions in 2024/25. Genotin Road took 2,879.
Paying
All car parks and all on-street pay to park bays take PayByPhone, either through the app or on 0330 400 7275. On-street you can also pay at a shop displaying the PayPoint sign, with the location reference from the parking sign and your registration.
If you would rather not use a phone, the council still sells scratch-card parking vouchers, for cash or card, at:
- the Parking Shop, Crown Road, EN1
- Enfield Town, Edmonton Green, Palmers Green, Oakwood and Fore Street libraries
- the Ordnance Unity Centre library
Scratch off the date and time you arrive and leave the voucher on the dashboard.
Season tickets exist for the car parks, in an inner and an outer zone. An inner zone ticket covers Enfield Town car parks and the outer zone as well; an outer zone ticket covers everything outside Enfield Town. They are sold only at the Parking Shop and the council does not publish the price online. It does not guarantee you a space.
On-street pay to park
The maximum stay in an on-street bay is two hours. The exception is the pay to park bays around North Middlesex Hospital, where it is four.
| How long | All areas, Monday to Saturday |
|---|---|
| 15 minutes | 90p |
| 30 minutes | £1.70 |
| 1 hour | £3.30 |
| 2 hours | £6.50 |
| 3 hours, North Middlesex Hospital area only | £8.00 |
| 4 hours, North Middlesex Hospital area only | £9.00 |
Enfield Town charges on-street on a Sunday too, at the same 90p to £6.50 rates up to two hours. Nowhere else in the borough does. Source: the council’s pay to park page.
Where the free on-street bays are
The council counts 309 free on-street spaces in the borough, and they are not spread evenly. From its general on-street parking page:
| Location | Free spaces |
|---|---|
| Arnos Grove CPZ | 189 |
| Winchmore Hill CPZ | 35 |
| Old Park Road | 30 |
| Village Road | 23 |
| Hertford Road | 12 |
| Alderman’s Hill | 10 |
| Enfield Town CPZ | 10 |
Arnos Grove has more free on-street spaces than the rest of the borough put together. Enfield Town has ten, against 155 paid bays.
Motorcycles park free for unlimited time in the Enfield Town bay outside The George, and in the Genotin Road, Little Park Gardens and Lodge Drive motorcycle bays.
Permits
Enfield runs 26 controlled parking zones and five housing estate schemes. Resident permit prices go by engine size, and electric vehicles pay the lowest band.
| Engine size | First permit, all-day zone | Second or third | First permit, 1-to-4 hour zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1000cc or less, and electric | £77 | £95 | £38.50 |
| 1001cc to 1600cc | £155 | £195 | £77.50 |
| 1601cc to 1999cc | £230 | £290 | £115 |
| 2000cc or more | £395 | £495 | £197.50 |
Three permits per household is the cap, except in the Meridian Water zone, where it is one. Business permits cost £920 a year in all-day zones and £85 a year in 1-to-4 hour zones. A replacement permit costs £20, waived if you have a crime reference number.
Blue Badge holders get a resident permit free, on top of the usual documents.
Visitor vouchers come in books of ten: £10.50 for a 1-to-4 hour zone, £21 for a half-day voucher in an all-day zone. All prices from the council’s permits page.
Applying needs the V5C registered to your address in the zone and a utility bill from the last three months.
Two zones do not behave like the others:
- South Edmonton and Sunnyside are event-day zones for Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, operating noon to 9pm on event days only. Visitor books cost £15 for ten. South Edmonton issued 4,069 resident permits in 2024/25, more than any other zone in Enfield.
- Meridian Water is a restricted parking zone with no yellow lines at all. Restrictions run 9am to 9pm, seven days a week, and are shown only on entry signs. Blue Badge holders may use the dedicated disabled bays there and nothing else.
Blue Badge and Brown Badge
In Enfield a Blue Badge lets you park free, for unlimited time, in disabled bays, PayByPhone bays, free time-limited “stop and shop” bays, and resident bays inside a controlled parking zone. Maximum stay limits do not apply. On single or double yellow lines, where there is no loading restriction, the limit is three hours with a time clock displayed. In any council-managed car park, parking is free and unlimited.
Enfield also issues a Brown Badge, which most boroughs do not. It is free, for residents over 70 who do not hold a Blue Badge, and it lets you use designated bays across the borough in any vehicle, as driver or passenger. It does not make parking free: you still buy and display a ticket. Apply through the council’s elderly person’s parking permit page.
A dedicated disabled bay outside your home is free for new applicants and takes at least three months to process. Converting an existing disabled bay into a permit-holder bay costs a one-off £200.
Station parking
The two big commuter car parks in Enfield are Transport for London’s, at the Piccadilly line termini, and they are managed by Saba. Both are ANPR-controlled, cashless and open 24 hours. Payment has to be made on arrival, and a daily ticket expires at 4.30am.
| Cockfosters | Oakwood, front and rear | |
|---|---|---|
| Spaces | 326 | 23 and 129 |
| Monday to Friday | £11.00 | £10.60 |
| Saturday | £10.00 | £9.50 |
| Sunday | £9.00 | £8.50 |
| Bank holidays | £11.00 | £10.60 |
| Motorcycle | £2.00 | £2.00 |
| One month | £236 | £228 |
| Twelve months | £2,832 | £2,736 |
Figures from Saba’s own pages for Cockfosters, Oakwood front and Oakwood rear. Oakwood caps a stay at seven days; Cockfosters has a 2m height restriction.
Note the contrast with the council. Twelve months at Cockfosters costs £2,832. A resident permit for a small car in an Enfield all-day zone costs £77.
The National Rail stations on the Enfield Town and Hertford loop lines do not have TfL car parks. Around those, the council’s own car parks and on-street bays are what is available, and Enfield Town’s are listed above.
If you get a ticket
Penalty charges rose across all 32 London boroughs on 7 April 2025 and Enfield published its own notice of the change.
- higher-level parking contravention: £160, halved to £80 if paid within 14 days
- lower-level parking contravention: £110, halved to £55 within 14 days
- bus lane contravention: £160
- moving traffic contravention: £160
- release from a wheel clamp: £100
- release from the car pound: £280, plus £55 a day storage
Source: the council’s notice of penalty charge changes.
The Parking Shop is at NSL Limited, Unit 2, Crown Road, Enfield EN1 1TH, open seven days, 7am to 7pm, on 020 3856 0036. It handles permits, appeals, fines and Blue Badge companion permits.
Have your say