Harvey Centre is £1.10 for 3 hours on a weekday, 50p on Sundays. Wych Elm has no free hour; 13 other council car parks do. Every tariff and permit price.

Harlow Council owns fourteen car parks, and thirteen of them give you the first hour for nothing. The exception is Wych Elm, the big one nearest the town centre, which charges from the first minute at all hours of every day.

There is a catch on the free hour that costs people money. The council’s own wording is blunt: “You do not need to pay for the free parking period, but you still need to either get a ticket from the pay and display machine, or register your parking on the app, online, by text or phone.” Park for forty minutes without touching the machine and you can be issued a penalty charge notice, because there is no record that you were there legally.

This page sets out what each council car park charges this year, where the genuinely free parking is, what permits cost, and what the town centre’s three big private car parks charge, because those are the ones most people actually use. Everything was checked against the operators’ own pages on 30 August 2026.

The three tariffs, and which car parks use each

Harlow’s fourteen car parks run on three different charging patterns. Which one applies is the single most useful thing to know before you park.

Neighbourhood centres: free evenings and all weekend

Six car parks charge only Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. Outside those hours, and all day Saturday and Sunday, they are free.

  • Tawneys Road, CM18 6PN (Bush Fair), 78 spaces, 4 for Blue Badge holders
  • Tilegate Road, CM18 6NQ (Bush Fair), 55 spaces, 3 for Blue Badge holders
  • Garden Terrace Road, CM17 0AT (Old Harlow), 48 spaces, 5 for Blue Badge holders, 8 with EV charging
  • Wayre Street, CM17 0DN (Old Harlow), 43 spaces, 3 for Blue Badge holders
  • Minchen Road, CM20 3DY (The Stow), 36 spaces, 4 for Blue Badge holders, 8 with EV charging
  • The Stow, CM20 3AG, 29 spaces, 3 for Blue Badge holders

The tariff is the same at all six:

Time Charge
Up to 1 hour Free, with a displayed or registered ticket
2 hours £0.90
3 hours £1.90
4 hours £3.85
Over 4 hours £6.90

Town Park and the river: cheap on a weekday, cheaper at the weekend

Six more charge at all times but keep the rates low, and give two free hours rather than one at weekends. These are the car parks for the Town Park, the Stort and the Showground.

  • School Lane, CM20 2QB, 51 spaces plus a 40 space overspill, 4 for Blue Badge holders
  • First Avenue, at Tanyard Place, CM20 2FF, 17 spaces, 4 for Blue Badge holders
  • Altham Grove, CM20 2PW, 14 spaces, 2 for Blue Badge holders
  • Burnt Mill Lock, at Burntmill Close, CM20 2PS, 18 spaces
  • River Way, CM20 2DW, 20 spaces, 1 for Blue Badge holders
  • Showground, at Fifth Avenue, CM20 1FD, 28 spaces, 6 for Blue Badge holders, open only for special events and peak season
Time Weekday Weekend
Up to 1 hour Free, with a ticket Free, with a ticket
1 to 2 hours £1.20 Free, with a ticket
2 to 5 hours £1.20 £1.30
Over 5 hours £6.70 £1.30

A full Saturday at School Lane, in other words, is £1.30.

Mill Hatch, CM20 2DG, is a fourteenth car park on its own pattern. It has eight spaces, charges Monday to Friday 7am to 7pm rather than 8am to 5pm, and is free outside those hours. Motorbikes park free. The weekday rate is the same £1.20 for one to five hours and £6.70 beyond that.

Wych Elm: the only one with no free period

Wych Elm, CM20 1QP, is the biggest council car park at 120 spaces, 7 of them for Blue Badge holders. It is the council car park nearest the town centre, and the only one where the charges “apply at all times” with no free hour at all.

Time Charge
Up to 2 hours £1.75
3 hours £2.10
4 hours £3.35
Over 4 hours £8

If you use it daily, a season permit is cheaper. Wych Elm is the only council car park that sells them: £185 for three months, £365 for six, £675 for a year. You have to email parking@harlow.gov.uk for a form, send a copy of your V5 and insurance certificate, and then call 01279 446655 to pay. Note the council’s parking permits index page still offers season permits at “Post Office Road and Wych Elm car parks”, while the season permit page itself says Wych Elm only. Go by the season permit page.

How to pay, and one number the council has printed twice

Most council car parks take cash or card at the machine. River Way and Mill Hatch do not take cash at all. Everywhere else you can also pay by the MI PERMIT app, at wanttopark.com/harlow, by texting PARK and your registration to 61600, or by calling 0345 520 7007.

Paying by phone or app needs the car park’s location number, and here the council’s own pages contradict each other. The Minchen Road page and The Stow page both give the location number 737814. They are different car parks a short walk apart in The Stow neighbourhood centre, and they cannot share a number. If you are paying remotely at either, check the number on the tariff board in front of you rather than trusting the website.

Motorhomes are banned from every council car park in Harlow.

Free parking, and where it runs out

Harlow’s genuinely free parking is more generous than most Essex towns, and the 2026 budget kept it that way. The council’s budget announcement in February 2026 said “nearly all fees and charges remain frozen, including free car parking”.

Where it applies:

  • Every evening and all weekend at the six neighbourhood centre car parks listed above, and at Mill Hatch outside 7am to 7pm on weekdays.
  • The first hour on a weekday, at every council car park except Wych Elm.
  • The first two hours at a weekend, at the six Town Park and riverside car parks.
  • Blue Badge holders park free in every council car park, at any time.

The trap is the ticket. In all of those cases you must still take a pay and display ticket or register the stay, even though the amount due is nothing. At River Way and Mill Hatch, where there is no cash machine, that means registering by app, web, text or phone before you walk away.

The council has also been building free residential parking on its estates rather than charging for it. It announced on 18 March 2026 that its Open Parking Programme had completed its 1,000th new free residential space, after 500 the previous year, with work named at Abbotsweld, Orchard Croft and Willowfield.

Residents’ permits: £75, and £125 for the second car

Residential permit parking in Harlow is not run by Harlow Council. It is administered and enforced by the North Essex Parking Partnership, the shared service that also covers Braintree, Colchester, Epping Forest, Tendring and Uttlesford. Permits are virtual, so there is nothing to display.

NEPP’s Harlow page gives the current prices:

Permit Price
First resident permit, 12 months £75.00
Second resident permit, 12 months £125.00
Visitor permit, 10 stays of 6 hours £10.00
Visitor permit, 10 stays of 24 hours £18.00
Carer’s permit, 12 months £38.00
Trader’s permit, 12 months £250.00

Carer and trader permits are not online applications. NEPP asks you to call 01206 282316.

If your street is not currently a permit area and you want it to be, that request goes to Harlow Council rather than NEPP, through its residential permit scheme page.

Blue Badge parking

A Blue Badge parks free in every Harlow Council car park, and NEPP says a badge holder does not need a resident or visitor permit either. The clock has to be displayed wherever a maximum stay is advertised.

Harlow Council no longer issues its own disabled person parking permit. Existing ones stay valid until they expire, and it will still reissue one for a change of vehicle. If you want an equivalent permit to use alongside a Blue Badge, that now comes from NEPP, by email to parking@colchester.gov.uk or on 01206 282316.

The council does publish where the town centre disabled bays are, which is unusually useful. Its town centre disabled parking page lists:

  • West Gate, 27 free bays
  • Wych Elm car park, 7 free bays
  • North Gate, 4 free bays
  • South Gate, 4 free bays
  • Harvey Centre car park, 25 bays, 10 minutes free for short stays
  • Water Gardens car park, 62 bays, 15 minutes free for short stays
  • Terminus Street car park, 15 bays, 15 minutes free for short stays

Read the bottom three carefully. Those are private car parks, and the free minutes are the general grace period the operator gives every driver, not a disabled concession. The Water Gardens states it plainly: “All blue badge holders must also pay for parking.”

For a marked disabled bay on the street outside your home, apply to Essex County Council, which owns most roads in Harlow. Only if ECC says the road is not theirs does the application come to Harlow Council.

The town centre: Harvey Centre, Water Gardens and Terminus Street

Most people parking to shop in Harlow are not in a council car park at all. The three big town centre car parks are privately run, and their tariffs are quite different from the council’s.

The Harvey Centre, 731 spaces, ticketless and cashless. Its car parking page gives:

Time Monday to Friday Saturday
Up to 1 hour £1.10 £1.30
1 to 2 hours £1.10 £1.30
2 to 3 hours £1.10 £2.20
3 to 4 hours £3.30 £4.40
4 to 5 hours £4.95 £6.60
5 to 6 hours £4.95 £11.00
6 to 9 hours £11.00 £11.00
Over 9 hours £16.50 £16.50

Two flat rates make the difference. Sunday is 50p all day. So is an evening: enter and leave between 6pm and 4am Monday to Saturday and it is £1. Height restriction 2.1 metres.

The Water Gardens, 1,200 spaces, camera controlled, with pay stations in the Asda foyer, outside Asda on the upper deck and outside Matalan. Its parking page gives:

Time Monday to Friday Saturday
Up to 2 hours £0.90 £1.20
Up to 3 hours £1.00 £2.00
Up to 4 hours £3.00 £4.00
Up to 6 hours £4.50 £6.00
Up to 9 hours £10.00 £15.00
Up to 23 hours £15.00 £15.00

Four things are worth knowing before you use it:

  • Sunday is 50p all day, and so is any stay that starts after 5.30pm. The overnight rate only applies if you enter after 5.30pm. Arrive at five and stay until nine and you pay the day rate.
  • Spend £5 or more in Asda or Matalan and the shop gives you a voucher that takes two hours off the bill at the pay station. It does not work if you pay online.
  • There is a 15 minute grace period, so a genuine drop-off costs nothing.
  • Blue Badge holders pay. There are 62 disabled bays, 32 upper and 30 lower, but no free concession. Height restriction 2.1 metres, and 12 EV bays served by six fast chargers at 55p per kWh on top of the parking charge.

Forget to pay at either and the parking company can issue a charge of up to £70. The Water Gardens allows you to pay late online at parkonomy.com within 24 hours, though you lose the Asda and Matalan discount.

Terminus Street car park is run by NCP. Its own site was unreadable when we checked on 30 August 2026, so this page does not carry its tariff. Check the boards on arrival.

Station parking

Harlow has two stations, both with car parks run by Saba, and the price gap between them is large. Figures below are from the National Rail station pages.

Harlow Town Harlow Mill
Spaces 649, of which 18 accessible 31, none listed as accessible
Cycle spaces 52 10
Daily £9.50 £6.10
Off peak £7.80 £4.90
Saturday or Sunday £6.37 £4.40
Weekly £38.00 £26.15
Monthly £137.00 £115.00
Three months £369.00 £329.00
Annual £1,330.00 £1,177.00

Harlow Town also runs a £10 weekend fare covering 10am Friday to 4am Monday, a £61 flexi ticket, and two premium bays at £2,475 a year.

Penalty charges

NEPP enforces both on-street and off-street parking across Harlow. It does not publish the amount of a penalty charge notice anywhere on its website, so this page cannot state it; the figure is printed on the notice itself.

What NEPP does publish are the deadlines, and they matter:

  • Challenge within 14 days of the notice being issued and, if the challenge is rejected, the discount period is offered again for a further 14 days. Challenge on day 20 and you lose that protection.
  • After 28 days, or if you were sent a postal notice, the informal challenge route closes and you make a formal representation against the Notice to Owner instead.
  • Once a Charge Certificate arrives, it is too late to appeal.

Both routes start on NEPP’s challenge a PCN page.

For a car blocking your driveway, NEPP can issue a notice if more than half the vehicle is across it, but it cannot remove the car. Four wheels on the pavement is a matter for Essex Police on 101, not the council.

Sources