South Bank Parking: Southbank Centre, BFI & Riverside Walks

The South Bank's venues all give the same travel advice: come by train, Tube, or on foot. The riverside walkway between Westminster Bridge and Waterloo Bridge is pedestrianised, which is exactly what makes it one of London's best walks, and exactly what makes "parking at the Southbank Centre" a trick question. You do not park at the South Bank. You park just behind it, once, and walk everything.

We operate the car park many drivers end up using for this, so we are not a neutral guide. But every walking time below is measured from our own forecourt, and we will tell you plainly when driving is the wrong choice.

One car park covers the whole strip

Our Waterloo car park at 39 York Road, London SE1 7NQ sits one street back from the river, directly behind the South Bank. The practical details:

• Sat-nav tip: route to SE1 7NN, which lands you at the entrance gate, first left on Leake Street. The official SE1 7NQ postcode can drop you on the wrong side of the block.
• Open ANPR forecourt. Drive straight in: no barrier, no ticket, no kiosk. Your number plate is registered when you book the Waterloo car park online, and the cameras match it to your booking on arrival. ANPR here is enforcement and booking verification, so a vehicle without a valid booking receives a parking charge.
• From £5 an hour, with discounted day and week rates. The rate locks in when you book, so what you reserve is what you pay.
• Free cancellation up to 24 hours before your booking starts.

Measured walking times from 39 York Road

These are the same figures we publish on the booking page, from the forecourt gate:

• BFI IMAX: 4 minutes
• London Eye: 6 minutes
• London Dungeon and SEA LIFE Aquarium: 7 minutes (both inside County Hall)
• Southbank Centre and Royal Festival Hall: 8 minutes
• The Old Vic: 9 minutes
• National Theatre: 10 minutes
• Westminster Bridge and Big Ben: 12 minutes

Waterloo Station itself is a 3-minute walk, useful when half your party is arriving by train.

The route to the riverside is simple: out of the forecourt and along Belvedere Road, with the Royal Festival Hall ahead of you before Jubilee Gardens opens out towards the Eye. Once you reach the river, everything else is a flat stroll along the Thames Path.

Southbank Centre and the Royal Festival Hall

The Southbank Centre is a complex rather than a single building: the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery share the site. For all of them, budget about 8 minutes on foot from our forecourt.

Two things matter for concert nights:

• There is no gate curfew at Waterloo. The forecourt is an open ANPR site, so an evening concert plus dinner is simply a longer booking, and if the night runs on, the booking can be extended from your account dashboard.
• Concert nights are our busy nights. Demand at the forecourt peaks around Royal Festival Hall concerts, BFI IMAX screenings, and Old Vic and National Theatre shows. The site is capped per booking, so we never overbook, which also means pre-booking is what guarantees your space.

BFI IMAX or BFI Southbank?

Two different buildings, often confused. The BFI IMAX is the drum-shaped cinema in the roundabout at the south end of Waterloo Bridge, and at 4 minutes it is the closest South Bank venue to our forecourt. BFI Southbank, the film theatre on the riverside under Waterloo Bridge, sits next to the National Theatre, so allow around 10 minutes. Either way, one parking spot covers a screening at one and dinner near the other.

What a South Bank drive actually costs

Parking is only part of the bill in central London, and pretending otherwise would be misleading:

• Congestion Charge: the South Bank sits inside the Congestion Charge zone. The charge is £18 per day at the time of writing (July 2026), with specific operating hours and exemptions. Check your vehicle and travel time on TfL's official checkers before you set off.
• ULEZ: most modern petrol and diesel cars meet the standard and pay nothing. If yours does not, ULEZ is £12.50 per day at the time of writing (July 2026). Same TfL checker, two minutes to confirm.
• Parking: for a typical afternoon-into-evening South Bank visit, budget the hourly rate times your stay. The live price for your exact times shows on the booking page before you pay.

Shared between three or four people, with a ULEZ-compliant car, on a day or time the Congestion Charge does not apply, driving in can genuinely compete with train fares. Alone, it usually cannot.

When you should not drive

Honesty cuts both ways. If you are travelling alone from anywhere with a direct train into Waterloo, take the train: the station sits on the strip's doorstep and you will not beat it door to door. Driving earns its keep when you are carrying people, pushchairs, instruments, or plans that reach beyond the South Bank itself.

Make it a riverside day

One booking covers the lot: coffee at the Southbank Centre, the Hayward or a matinee, the book stalls under Waterloo Bridge, the Eye, and back along the Thames Path. If the London Eye is the anchor of your day, our London Eye parking guide covers that side of the walk in detail, and for our other sites across the city see our London parking guide.

One more thing while the car sits with us: the same forecourt runs a car wash (hand wash, valeting and detailing), and a wash booking includes one hour of parking at the site. A riverside walk plus a clean car on your return is a better use of that hour than most.