Station Road West MSCP

With countless students, commuters and locals passing through the city on a regular basis, Canterbury West Station is one of the busiest transport hubs in East Kent. However, as the demand for the high speed service to London has increased over the years, so too had the need for a more suitable car park to accommodate the influx in travellers. 

Hi-Way Services was approached to provide a variety of markings for a new multi-storey car park build. The new car park would feature a number of disabled spaces, parent and child bays, reserved bays, car club bays – all of which were suitably colour-coded – but also plenty of charging stations for electric vehicles, a vital addition for any modern car park.

The Problem

One of the biggest challenges we faced whilst working on this project was delivering the highest possible quality, whilst still adhering to budgetary requirements. This meant using MMA as sparingly as possible, and looking to other suitable paints and materials for the line marking work that would preserve the building materials.

The ground floor of the car park was built using asphalt and montex (concrete), the first floor was all montex and the second floor was built using mastic asphalt. Both of asphalt and mastic asphalt would be vulnerable to damage by solvent paints, limiting our options. 

In addition, various coloured paints were needed on all three floors in order to achieve a sleek, modern and user-friendly look. Different coloured bays for disabled guests and clearly-marked pedestrian walkways were both important parts of the overall design, and would need to stand out aesthetically as well as improving usability. A hybrid approach would be necessary in order to use a variety of colours on these various surfaces. 

The Solution

This hybrid approach to the line marking and paintwork meant using a mixture of MMA – a very hard-wearing product – as well as other suitable water-based options that were appropriate for asphalt surfaces. These would give the markings and car park a smart-looking appearance, and also complied with the budgetary requirements. 

Because of these varying factors, this developed into a very creative project, in which we were forced to think outside the box. For example, walkways and roadways on the ground and first floor were installed using red and grey MMA, giving the finished product an eye-catching and sleek look. The Ultragrip MMA has a textured but sleek finish, fulfilling the demands of safety and aesthetics.

However, all of the parking bays, letters and arrows were done using paint products dependent on the surface, water based was used for asphalt and mastic asphalt areas whilst solvent based was used for the montex surfaces (concrete). 

Finally, the different coloured bays themselves were created using the multigrip water-based paint on the asphalt surfaces and a multigrip solvent based paint on the montex surface to give a hard wearing slip resistant finish. All works on the motex we primed to ensure good adhesion and longevity.  Using variety of primers and products proved challenging but our operatives did a fantastic job.

The Results

The project began on March 2nd and was completed on March 27th, with 380 brand new parking spaces for commuters and locals alike. The project not only was completed on time, but did not exceed the original appointed budget and was approved by Canterbury City Council as a welcome addition to the area.  

The Client Said

From project inception right through to completion the Hi-Way services team offered excellent advice and worked hard to understand our bespoke requirements for this site. We knew the variety of surfaces in the car park combined with the size of the project was going to be challenging, especially when working to a tight schedule with the necessity to work around other personnel on site.

Hi-way services were able to recommend a variety of products that would be long lasting and meet our expectations whilst being suitable for application to each individual surface and remaining cost effective. 

The team worked through every challenge the job presented to them professionally and diligently, the dedication of everyone involved is evident in the quality of the finished product. We are very pleased with the high quality results the Hi-Way team have achieved and impressed by the faultless delivery of the project which was completed both on time and within budget.