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- London parking suspensions for moving house
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- Islington parking suspension
- Red route dispensations
- ULEZ, removals vans and the Congestion Charge on moving day
Red route dispensations: moving house where the council cannot help
Written by Daniel, founder, Metro City Moves
A red route dispensation is the only parking product that exists for moving day on TfL's roads, because on a red route there are no suspensions at any price. The fee is £48 a day on red lines and £38 a day in a loading or parking bay, with at least 6 working days' notice. On a red line, no late application exists at all. If the new address fronts the A1, the North Circular or Seven Sisters Road, this page concerns your kerb — and your council cannot assist with it.
The short version
- Red routes belong to TfL, not the borough. No council can suspend a bay on one.
- TfL sells dispensations only: £48 a day on red lines, £38 a day in a loading or parking bay, per vehicle.
- Notice: at least 6 working days, including the day TfL receives the request. Applications are by phone.
- Red lines take no late applications. Miss the clock and no fee fixes it.
- A dispensation reserves nothing — and obstructing a bay on a red route is an offence.
TfL's facts on this page come from its primary PDFs and its own dispensations page, read live in a browser on 18 August 2026 — the fee, the notice period and the exceptional-circumstances rule were all confirmed unchanged that day. Sources are dated individually below.
How to know if your street is one
Red routes are the roads where TfL, not the borough, is the highway authority, and where red route rules apply. The red lines painted along the kerb are the visible signature. In North London, three roads people regularly move to are on TfL's network: the A1 (including the Archway Interchange), the A406 North Circular, and Seven Sisters Road (the A503). That comes from the legal designation order as made in 2000. It has been amended repeatedly since, so treat the road names as reliable and the precise junction limits as a detail to confirm.
The boroughs confirm the split in their own words. Haringey: "We do not give suspensions for red routes. For a red route suspension contact Transport for London." Hackney: "We do not issue suspensions for red routes." Islington: "We are not responsible for suspensions on red routes or private roads."
Same houses, same postcodes as the streets behind them — different authority, different product, different price, different clock.
What a red route dispensation costs, and the clock
TfL names house moves as a use case in its own opening line: "In special circumstances we can relax the parking rules on our red routes, for example if you are moving house, making a bulky delivery or doing building works."
| Item | TfL's figure |
|---|---|
| Single or double red line, per vehicle | £48 a day |
| Loading or parking bay, per vehicle | £38 a day |
| Notice | At least 6 working days, including the day the request is received |
| Late application, red lines | Not accepted |
Red lines are the difficult case. Dispensations for parking on a single or double red line are "only granted in exceptional circumstances (such as erecting scaffolding, moving heavy items)", which can mean review by TfL's traffic engineers and a site visit. They also "may not be granted where reasonable parking alternatives are available or simply for reasons of convenience". A house move can qualify; convenience does not.
Application is by telephone, not online: dial 0343 222 3333, press option 2, then the star key to speak to an adviser about the application. Paying by cheque through the post adds time — allow 10 working days for it to clear.
TfL is unable to consider late applications for red line dispensations because of the investigation time each one needs. Every borough scheme has some short-notice fallback, even an expensive one; the red line has none. Book the kerb before you book the van.
The rules once it is issued
- TfL emails a permit that must sit on the vehicle's dashboard: "The dispensation is only valid if the permit is on display."
- No refunds once a permit is approved and issued, even if it is never used.
- It can be re-issued once, with at least one working day's notice before the start date.
- It can be revoked on the spot by an enforcement officer or the police, without warning — normally only for congestion or an emergency.
- It reserves nothing. TfL's words: a dispensation "will not entitle the holder to reserve a bay by obstructing its use by other vehicles. Obstructing a bay on a red route is an offence."
That last line is the whole product in miniature. You are buying permission to stand there, not the space itself. The distinction has its own guide: suspension vs dispensation.
If the answer is no — the workable plan B
When the dispensation is refused, or the clock has already run out, the move still happens. The workable plan is a side road. The streets behind a red route belong to the borough, and a borough bay can be suspended in the ordinary way. The cost is a longer carry between the van and the front door — a time cost we can plan for, and price honestly, if we know about it beforehand.
The borough schemes, with their own fees and clocks, are compared in what every borough charges. For the two boroughs either side of Seven Sisters Road, the detail is in the Haringey guide and the Hackney guide.
Questions we get about red routes
Can we pay more and get the bay suspended?
No. TfL does not sell suspensions on red routes at any price. The dispensation is the entire menu, and it reserves nothing.
Our new house is on the North Circular. Which council do we call?
Neither one. The A406 is TfL's road — telephone TfL on 0343 222 3333, at least 6 working days ahead. The council can only assist with the side streets.
Does the £48 permit hold the space outside the house?
No. It stops your vehicle being ticketed on the red line; it does not stop anyone else stopping there first. Obstructing a bay to reserve the space is an offence.
What happens if we just stop on the red line without one?
Red route enforcement is TfL's and it is camera-led, so a warden does not have to be standing there. On a double red line stopping is banned at every hour of every day. A single red line carries a time plate, and outside the hours on that plate stopping is permitted — but a moving day rarely fits inside them, and the plate is the only thing that decides it. Where the hours do not work, we plan a side road and a longer carry instead. It is slower and it works.
Moving to a red route address? Tell us the street when you ask for a quote and we will confirm whether the kerb is TfL's before anything is booked. Or start at house removals.
Sources
TfL's website blocks automated reading, so its dispensations page is cited from the Internet Archive's capture of TfL's own HTML. The fee figures agree with TfL's primary PDF, which we examined directly. All figures are re-checked every April.
- TfL — Red route dispensations — tfl.gov.uk, /modes/driving/red-routes/dispensations
- TfL — Dispensation Pack, Schedule 2 Appendix 17 — content.tfl.gov.uk, /eops-schedule2-appendix17-dispensation-pack.pdf
- The GLA Roads Designation Order 2000 (SI 2000/1117), as made — legislation.gov.uk, /uksi/2000/1117/schedule/made