Getting Your Car Out and Back on a Wembley Event Day
The short version. With a valid Resident Permit, your car can stay on your street all day. The hard part is the journey: going out before the restrictions and road closures start, and coming back once the roads have cleared.
Is your permit still valid? Check before the day, not on it. Resident Permits last three years, and because they are virtual there is nothing on the windscreen to remind you when one runs out. Our guide to event day parking tickets has what happened when ours expired.
Three per household. Brent sells up to three Resident Permits per household, at £15 each, through your Brent parking account. If you would rather pay in cash, Brent's page says to choose "Manual by Cash" when applying, then take the printed booking to the NSL Car Pound on Lumen Road, open 9am to 7pm every day.
Know which days count. Only the dates on Brent's list of Wembley Event Days bring the restrictions. Our homepage shows the next one, and Brent sends email alerts about event days, with details of the parking restrictions, to anyone who signs up to its e-news.
When the restrictions start:
- Main Roads to the stadium: 8am
- Controlled Parking Zones in the event day zone: 8am, except zone SA at 10am
- Residential Streets outside a Controlled Parking Zone: generally 10am
- Zone T: restricted 24 hours a day
When they end. Midnight, everywhere except zone T.
Going out. The first road closures come about four hours before the event starts, and our guide to an event day hour by hour lists them.
While the event is on. The Main Roads are busy with cars and Ubers, and traffic moves more slowly than on an ordinary day.
Coming back. After the show, the stadium closes Empire Way, London Road, Ecclestone Place and the Wembley Triangle. The Main Roads usually clear an hour or two after the event ends, depending on its size, and Forty Lane about an hour and a half after.
Two places to avoid after the show. Kings Drive, where crowds wait for Ubers and for people they are collecting, and Ecclestone Place, where they look for cabs, hotels and food.
If your usual space is taken. Brent's permit lets you park wherever parking is permitted in the event day zone, not only outside your own door.
A driveway sits outside it all. Brent enforces the event day restrictions on the public highway only, so a car on a private driveway is unaffected.