Some Councils Now Charge Residents Over £1,000 a Year to Park Outside Their Own Home

Islington residents now pay up to £1,073 a year for the right to park a car outside their own home, and a second permit on the same address adds another £108.55 on top. Across the country, councils are pushing resident parking permit prices higher through 2026, often for the first time in years.

The Most Expensive Places to Park at Home

Analysis of council permit charges puts Islington at the top of the national table, with its highest band reaching £1,073 a year for a single vehicle. Manchester City Council follows at up to £750 in the city centre, with Edinburgh third at £580, where a second permit adds a further £215.40, taking the cost of parking two cars at one address to £933.30 a year.

Stroud in Gloucestershire charges up to £550, Bournemouth £485, Stirling £471, and three London boroughs, Enfield, Haringey and Hackney, all charge between £376 and £395 at their top band. Most of these councils set their prices on a sliding scale based on a car’s CO2 emissions, meaning owners of larger or older petrol and diesel vehicles pay the most, while smaller, newer cars sit lower down the scale.

The gap between the top and bottom of a single council’s own permit table can be just as steep as the gap between different councils. Islington’s cheapest band for a low-emission vehicle sits far below its £1,073 top rate, and a household that trades in an older diesel for a smaller petrol or electric car can cut its own permit bill by hundreds of pounds a year without moving house or changing where it parks. That gap is deliberate policy, designed to push drivers toward cleaner cars, but it lands hardest on households who can’t afford to change vehicles on the council’s schedule rather than their own.

A second car at the same address rarely gets the same rate as the first. Councils that charge £1,073 for a single top-band permit often add a separate, sometimes lower, fee for each additional vehicle registered to the property, which means a household doesn’t simply double its bill for a second car, but the combined total for two vehicles at a high-charge address regularly runs past £1,000 even before the second car’s own emissions band is factored in.

What’s Changed in 2026

Several councils have raised permit prices this year, some for the first time in a decade. Fife Council increased its parking tariffs and permit prices in February 2026, the first rise across the region in a decade. North Hertfordshire District Council raised its permit fees from 1 May 2026, taking a six-month permit from £43 to £44 and a twelve-month permit from £86 to £88.

Hackney Council has gone further than a plain price rise. Its annual diesel surcharge for resident permits now stands at £200 a year, and the council has confirmed it will rise by £50 a year in future years, meaning a diesel-owning resident on the surcharge could be paying considerably more within a few years without any change to the base permit price at all.

None of these rises need a vote in Parliament or national headlines to take effect. Each is set locally through a council’s own parking tariff review, which means a permit that cost one amount in March can legally cost more by the summer with only a local consultation, or in some cases no consultation at all, behind it.

Who’s Paying and Who Decides

Permit income sits with the local authority that sets the charge, and councils are required to spend parking surplus on transport-related projects such as road maintenance, concessionary travel schemes and, in some cases, subsidising public transport. Even so, residents in high-charge boroughs are often people with no realistic alternative to owning a car, workers on shift patterns that don’t match public transport timetables, or households in areas without off-street parking, rather than the wealthiest drivers a CO2-based charge is designed to target.

A resident with two older diesel cars registered at the same London address can now face a bill well above £1,000 a year before they’ve driven a single mile, purely for the right to leave their vehicles on the street where they live.

The gap between the cheapest and most expensive permits in the country is stark. A driver in a low-charge area can pay under £50 a year for the same right that costs an Islington resident over £1,000, a difference driven almost entirely by where a person happens to live rather than by anything about how they drive or how much they use the road network.

What Happens Next

Permit prices are reviewed on each council’s own timetable, usually as part of an annual or biennial budget-setting cycle, which means further rises are likely in high-charge boroughs even without a specific announcement to expect one. Local authorities under budget pressure have increasingly turned to parking income, including permits, as a way to raise revenue without touching council tax directly, and permit charges are one of the few council fees not subject to the same public scrutiny as a headline tax rise.

Campaigners have called for a national cap on resident permit charges, similar to rules that already govern some other council fees, but no such cap currently exists in England, Scotland or Wales. Until one is introduced, the size of a resident’s permit bill depends entirely on the borough or district they live in, with no upper limit set by central government.

Some councils have signalled further increases to their diesel and high-emission surcharges specifically, following Hackney’s lead in setting out multi-year rises in advance rather than reviewing the rate every twelve months. Residents in areas without a published multi-year schedule should check their council’s next budget consultation date, as that is typically when a new tariff for the following year is proposed and opened to public comment.

How to Fight Back

Check whether your council offers a low-emission discount before renewing. Many authorities that charge on a CO2 sliding scale also offer a reduced or zero-rate band for electric and low-emission vehicles, and switching a household’s second car to a hybrid or EV can cut the bill sharply.

Look for carer, Blue Badge or low-income exemptions. Most councils publish a concessions policy separate from the standard permit table, and these are rarely advertised prominently on the main parking page.

If your council has just raised prices, check whether the change went through a statutory consultation. Traffic Regulation Order changes, which most permit price rises require, must be advertised and are open to formal objection within a set window, typically 21 days from publication.

Compare whether a shared permit or visitor permit scheme suits your household better than a second full annual permit, especially if the second vehicle is used only occasionally. Many councils offer cheaper short-term or visitor permit books that work out far less expensive than a second full-year permit for infrequent use.

If you believe your permit band has been miscalculated, based on the wrong CO2 figure or vehicle class, request a review directly from the council’s parking team with your V5C to hand. Misclassified vehicles are a common and often overlooked source of overcharging on emissions-banded schemes.

Ask your council directly whether it publishes an equality impact assessment for its permit tariff. Many local authorities are required to assess whether a fee change disproportionately affects disabled residents, low-income households or other protected groups before a price rise goes through, and a published assessment can reveal whether your circumstances entitle you to a discount the council hasn’t actively told you about.

If your street or estate has no off-street parking and the local permit price has jumped sharply, raise it with your ward councillor rather than only the parking department. Councillors hear directly from residents at surgeries and can push for a hardship review or a phased introduction of a price rise, something the parking department itself has no power to grant on its own.

Sources:

• Diamond Advanced Motorists: Study reveals the UK’s most and least expensive resident parking permits
• Select Car Leasing: The UK’s most expensive parking permits
• North Hertfordshire District Council: Changes to car parking fees and permits
• Fife Council: New parking charges introduced across Fife
• Motoring Chronicle: Diesel Drivers Face Parking Charges Up to 50 Percent Higher as Councils Cash In