Parking in Dulwich: £5.70 an Hour, Free Bank Holidays

Southwark runs two car parks. Both are in Peckham. There is no council car park anywhere in Dulwich, so parking here means the street, and the street means controlled parking zones whose hours change every few roads and are often only two hours long.

The prices below are Southwark’s, and one of them the council publishes two different ways on two different pages. That is set out too.

The quick answer

• £5.70 an hour in the Dulwich, Peckham and Camberwell zones. £9.20 if the vehicle is diesel.
• Bank holidays are free in paid bays and permit bays, except Bankside and Bermondsey. Double yellows and park car parks are still enforced.
• Dulwich Village’s zone runs 8am to 9.30am and 3pm to 5pm only. Outside those hours, no permit, no charge.
• Herne Hill and North Dulwich: noon to 2pm. Dog Kennel Hill: 11am to 1pm.
• Resident permit: £285.90 a year for a ULEZ-compliant first car. £352.90 for a diesel or any second vehicle.
• Vehicles over 2.286m tall cannot hold a permit at all.
• No station in Dulwich has a car park. Six of the seven local stations have zero spaces.
• Council car parks: Choumert Grove and Peckham Town Centre, both SE15, both £2.80 an hour plus a £4.20 diesel surcharge.

The zone hours that catch people out

Southwark has 31 controlled parking zones covering about 60% of the borough, each with its own hours. Outside those hours you do not need a permit and visitors do not pay. The Dulwich zones are among the shortest in the borough, and the Village one is split into two windows around the school run.

Two things about that list. A zone letter is not the same thing as a street sign, and the council says so: hours can vary street by street, so read the time plate on the bay you have actually parked in. And Southwark’s newest zones have no entry signs and no single yellow lines at all. In those streets the kerb is either a marked bay you can use or a double yellow line you cannot, and there is nothing else to read.

What an hour costs, and the price the council prints twice

Southwark splits its on-street charges into two tiers. The expensive tier is zones C1, C2, D, F, G and GR, which are Bankside, Borough, Newington, London Bridge, Bermondsey and Grange. Everything else, including every Dulwich, Peckham and Camberwell zone, is on the cheaper tier.

The council publishes that cheaper tier as two different numbers.

• Paying for parking, last updated 31 March 2026: £5.70 an hour, or £9.20 with the diesel surcharge. The higher tier is £8.60 and £13.40.
• On-street parking bays, last updated 6 January 2026: £5.10 an hour, or £8.30 with the diesel surcharge. The higher tier is £7.80 and £12.10.

The £5.70 set is the one to work from. It carries the later update date, it lands on 31 March, the day before the financial year turns, and it is repeated unchanged on the council’s older services site. The £5.10 page has simply not been refreshed.

Payment is through PayByPhone, by app, online, by phone or in cash at a PayPoint shop. You need the location reference from the sign.

Bank holidays: mostly free, with named exceptions

Southwark publishes this properly, which is more than it manages for bins, and it is worth knowing before the next bank holiday Monday.

On every bank and public holiday except Christmas Day, parking is free in:

• paid parking places, except Bermondsey zone G
• permit holder bays, except Bankside zone C1 and Bermondsey zone G
• council-run car parks, except the ones inside parks

And it is still enforced on:

• double yellow lines anywhere in the borough
• footways, dropped kerbs and disabled bays
• permit bays in Bankside C1 and all bays in Bermondsey G
• car parks inside Southwark’s parks, including Dulwich Park

That last one is the trap for a Dulwich reader. The street outside is free on a bank holiday; the park car park you drive into is not.

On Christmas Day there is no parking or bus lane enforcement at all, but banned turns and prohibited movements are still enforced by camera.

Lambeth’s rules are not the same. On the West Dulwich and Herne Hill side, pay bays and permit bays are also free, but Lambeth still enforces single yellow lines, council car parks, disabled bays, car club bays and footway parking, and it runs a vehicle removal service on bank holidays. Southwark’s exemption list does not mention single yellows; Lambeth’s explicitly does.

The two council car parks

Both are in Peckham, and both are the same price.

Choumert Grove car park, Choumert Grove, SE15 4RB

• Around 120 spaces
• Monday to Saturday, 8.30am to 6.30pm, excluding bank holidays
• £2.80 an hour, plus a £4.20 diesel surcharge
• PayByPhone or PayPoint, zone 84561
• Patrolled by civil enforcement officers and Peckham Wardens

Peckham Town Centre car park, Cerise Road, SE15 5HQ

• Around 50 spaces, entrance on Cerise Road
• Same hours, same price, same diesel surcharge, same PayByPhone zone
• CCTV, and patrolled

Season tickets cover both and do not guarantee a space: £69.30 a month, £207.90 for three months, £415.80 for six, £832 for a year.

Note the wrinkle in the bank holiday rules. The car park pages say the hours run Monday to Saturday “excluding bank holidays”, while the enforcement page says council-run car parks outside parks are free on bank holidays. Southwark does not reconcile the two, and we are not going to guess which it means.

Lambeth’s three short-stay car parks are at Popes Road in Brixton, Leigham Court Road in Streatham and Waylett Place in West Norwood. None is in Dulwich, all close on public and bank holidays, and Popes Road and Leigham Court Road are free for disabled badge holders.

Resident permits

Southwark prices by fuel type rather than by emissions band, which makes it much simpler to read than Lambeth’s and, for a low-emission car, more expensive. Current prices:

A second permit at the same address is charged at the higher rate even when the second car is ULEZ compliant.

Three conditions worth reading before you buy:

• Height limit 2.286m, or 7ft 6in. A vehicle over that cannot hold a Southwark permit, and the council will cancel one it has already issued. That rules out a good number of high-roof vans and camper conversions.
• Car-free properties cannot buy a permit at all, unless the resident has a Blue Badge. Many new and converted flats in Dulwich and East Dulwich carry that planning restriction. Check the planning register before you rely on street parking.
• Residency is checked with Experian, and if that fails, against council tax records.

Refunds are only paid in complete months.

Visitor permits are virtual, and checked by number plate. One hour costs £3.00, or £18.15 for ten. Five hours costs £4.80, or £35.70 for ten. All day costs £9.20, or £45.15 for your first ten in a 12 month cycle and £81.90 for every ten after that. You can buy 100 all-day permits a year at most. Blue Badge holders get 50% off. Source.

Lambeth, on the West Dulwich side, bands every permit by CO2 or engine size. The cheapest band, a zero-emission car, is £135.96 a year, and the price climbs through 13 bands from there. Prices last rose on 14 April 2025. Lambeth applies a diesel surcharge to every diesel, including Euro 6, and a further surcharge on a household’s second permit. Estate permits are £31.79 a year.

Lambeth’s on-street charges are banded the same way, and split by time of day: peak between 10am and 1pm, off-peak either side, with the first 15 minutes charged at a quarter of the hourly rate. In the South Lambeth group of zones, a zero-emission car pays £4.66 an hour off-peak and a diesel pays £8.16.

Blue Badge and disabled parking

• Disabled bays are free all day for a Blue Badge holder, and they operate 24 hours a day unless a sign says otherwise. They are also one of the few things Southwark still enforces on a bank holiday.
• Applying for a bay on the street is free, but the council says the process can take up to a year, longer if anyone objects. You need DLA higher rate mobility, PIP with 8 or more points for moving around, or Attendance Allowance. Source.
• A bay is not yours. Southwark installs it on the highway and any other Blue Badge holder may use it.
• Dulwich Park: you can only drive a vehicle in with a Blue Badge, a doctor’s letter confirming impaired mobility if you are over 64, or proof of Attendance Allowance, and you need a permit and swipe card from the Park Office, College Road, SE21 7BQ, 020 8693 8635.

The Dulwich camera exemption, and where it stops

Southwark Blue Badge holders who also hold a disabled resident’s access permit can apply for a free exemption from the camera-enforced Streetspace restrictions. The exemption covers 21 junctions, and six of them are in Dulwich:

• Dulwich Village, northbound towards Pickwick Road
• Townley Road at Calton Avenue, northbound
• Burbage Road at Gallery Road, north westbound
• Burbage Road at Turney Road, north westbound
• Turney Road at Burbage Road, north eastbound
• Derwent Grove at Grove Vale

Three more cover Rye Lane in Peckham, at Blenheim Grove, Hanover Park and Heaton Road northbound.

Read the last line of that page carefully. The exemption does not apply at the junctions of Calton Avenue and Court Lane with Dulwich Village. Those are two of the most contested filters in the area and they are specifically excluded. The exemption lasts a year, and you must keep obeying the restrictions until the council emails confirmation.

School Street cameras

Several Dulwich streets close to motor traffic twice a day in term time, enforced by camera 24 hours a day in some cases and only at the school run in others. Southwark’s camera list includes:

• Adys Road at Amott Road and at East Dulwich Road: Mon to Fri, 8.30am to 9.15am and 3pm to 3.45pm
• Amott Road at Keston Road: same hours
• Bowen Drive at Kingswood Drive: Mon to Fri, 8am to 9.30am and 2.30pm to 4pm

New cameras issue warning notices rather than penalties for the first two weeks.

West Dulwich: the traffic filters are enforceable

If you drive in or through West Dulwich, this one is worth reading in full.

Lambeth’s own page says motorists are repeatedly driving through the traffic filters introduced under the West Dulwich Street Improvement scheme, apparently on the assumption that a live legal challenge makes them unenforceable. The council states plainly that the assumption is wrong. The Traffic Management Order was lawfully made and stays enforceable unless the council suspends it or a court rules otherwise, and the legal challenge will not be accepted as a reasonable excuse for a contravention or for non-payment of a fine.

Station parking: there is almost none

Checked against National Rail’s station records on 24 August 2026:

• North Dulwich: no parking spaces
• East Dulwich: no parking spaces
• West Dulwich: no parking spaces
• Herne Hill: no parking spaces
• Peckham Rye: no parking spaces
• Denmark Hill: no parking spaces
• Sydenham Hill: 16 spaces, none of them accessible spaces

Sydenham Hill is the only station in the area with a car park at all, and 16 spaces for a commuter station is not a park and ride. If you are driving to a train here, you are parking on the street, in a controlled zone, at £5.70 an hour during controlled hours.

Also on this site: roadworks and travel in Dulwich, bin collection days and Dulwich council tax bands.

Prices and hours checked on 24 August 2026 against Southwark Council, Lambeth Council and National Rail. Always read the sign on the bay before you park.