FEATURE
Parking Scheme has also had a signifi cant impact, raising the bar and setting the standard on what’s expected for a new parking facility. There are now more than 5,000 UK car parks that have been awarded the Park Mark, and the scheme’s new-build guidelines ensure that the principles of designing a safer car park are incorporated as an integral part of the design and construction process of any new facility.
largely the same, albeit with a switch away from reinforced concrete to steel- frame pre-cast slab construction, making them quicker to build. The integrity of the structure still has to be ensured by suitable waterproofi ng, lighting has to be suffi cient to provide customer safety and convenience and adequate ventilation is still essential. However, the shift to more sustainable building practices and environmental concerns, the increasing importance of energy-effi ciency in the built environment, and rapid developments in associated technologies have brought fresh issues to the construction of new car park facilities. These impact on many areas, from how to tackle pollution and improve ventilation control to deployment of energy-effi cient lighting and how to reduce building degradation.
The introduction of the Park Mark Safer
www.britishparking.co.uk
The Park Mark Safer Parking Scheme has also had a signifi cant impact, raising the bar and setting the standard on what’s expected
Opportunity knocks While the UK construction industry overall is still struggling through the recession, the parking sector continues to offer opportunities for facility providers and for new car parking projects. Since 2009, the number of new spaces added in construction projects has more than doubled from 149,000 to 325,000 this year, according to UK construction analyst Barbour ABI. Although commercial retail and leisure-based work may have slowed, cuts in public sector capital spending have opened the way for commercial operators to pursue long-term private fi nance initiative (PFI)-type solutions, in areas such as hospital car parking facilities. Government targets for reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 have resulted in increasingly stringent building regulations in both the commercial and domestic construction sector, with the aim to minimise the environmental impact of new buildings. The ambitious target is to achieve its zero-carbon standard in all new non-domestic buildings constructed from 2019. The drive to achieve the best possible environmental standards in building design, construction and operation of new commercial buildings has fed into the practice of car park construction.
While all the environmental and sustainability assessments applied to commercial developments don’t directly apply to car parks, they certainly inform the design and construction process in the sector.
Phil Herring, commercial director at leading UK parking infrastructure supplier and operator VINCI Park, explains: ‘With general building, we have the BREEAM assessment [BRE Environmental Assessment Measure], which sets the standard for best practice in sustainable
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