Car Park Redesign, Resurfacing & Remarking

Canterbury City Council’s approach to transport places an emphasis on walking and cycling, while recognising that visitors and shoppers will still want to use their cars. Good quality car parks are therefore important.

North Lane car park is in a prominent location next to the iconic Westgate Towers, one of the city’s historic gateways. And although it provided useful parking at the entrance to the main shopping area, it was far from ideal.

North lane car park before the resurfacing. The council’s Senior Transportation Officer, Josh Theobald, explains: “We’re fortunate to have the Great Stour river running through the city, and one section of it is alongside North Lane car park. However, all the parking spaces were on the river side of the car park, so pedestrians had to walk on the grass or leave the riverside, which didn’t fit with our approach of opening up the banks of the river for pedestrians.

“The car park also had no facilities for cyclists – a problem when your transport strategy stresses the importance of cycling – and, frankly, it looked pretty dull. It didn’t offer the best welcome to the city”.

“So we decided improvements were needed, and went for a riverside walk for pedestrians, a cycle shelter (to be lit at night) and a new layout for the car park spaces. One key requirement was to keep the same number of spaces. And we needed the whole job completed in two weeks – quite a challenge.”

Fortunately, Hi-Way Services stepped up to meet that challenge. A design was developed that met all the requirements and a team was allocated at short notice to complete the work.

Danny O’Reilly, Contracts Manager at Kent Depot at Hi-Way Services, says: “The initial challenge was squeezing the 1750m2 car park into our very busy March/April programme. Once this was achieved we were eager to start this prestigious contract. With the car park being surrounded by history, heritage and the tranquillity of the river, we knew the finished result needed to be immaculate”.

“My colleagues on site completed the contract in 4 days and the quality of the application was second to none. As a company we were proud of our operatives and delighted to deliver the contract to our client to their requested standard of works and in the allocated time”.

Josh adds: “The results are fantastic. The car park looks great, lots of people are using the new footpath and cyclists love the shelter. Businesses are also benefitting from increased footfall. Overall, it’s a major improvement to the area and Hi-Way Services did a great job. They pulled out all the stops with a high quality design and faultless implementation, all delivered professionally and in challenging timescales. A job well done indeed.”