FEATURE Car park construction Donning its finest USL StructureCare is part of the team involved in revamping the iconic Rotherham Transport Interchange, helping to give the town a car park fit for 21st century living hen South Yorkshire Passenger and Transport Executive (SYPTE) decided to keep one of the striking features of the Rotherham skyline the towns Transport Interchange it was fully aware of the work that would be needed. The car park required life-extending repairs and improvements, and internal repairs were needed in the bus interchange after a fire in May 2016, explains Ben Gilligan, director of public transport at SYPTE. All this gave us an opportunity to refresh the whole site. As its name suggests, the Transport Interchange includes a bus station and a four-storey, split-level multi-storey car park, over the bus station. The car park is accessed via a long, elevated concrete ramp that spans the River Don. Its an eye-catching structure, which was built in the late 1960s. Similar to many buildings of this era, the car parks concrete elements have experienced significant levels of degradation because of continual exposure to chlorides (primarily from de-icing salts), carbon dioxide and water penetration. Over the past 10 years, regular structural inspections had revealed a number of defects to columns, beams and slabs. A number of smaller repair schemes had taken place to maintain the car W This renovation integrates the building more appropriately into the context and the history of the area [and] provides a key element towards the regeneration of Rotherham town centre parks structural integrity and safety for its users. It was agreed to progress with a refurbishment of the interchange comprising major structural repairs and an overhaul to the car park, as well as a comprehensive refurbishment of the bus station below. SYPTE developed a 12.5m plan, with the value of the works split equally between car park repairs and the interchange refurbishment. USL StructureCare was contracted to carry out the repairs to the car park in May 2018. CONCRETE CARE The condition of the parking decks varied because only those exposed to the elements or directly above habitable space had been treated with a waterproof coating. Using the drawings supplied by engineering and design firm Arup, the USL StructureCare team calculated that 100m3 of concrete was defective and needed to be removed and replaced, the majority of which was in the decks. Because of the vast amount of concrete that needed replacing, the decision was made to use hydro-demolition techniques. The tender also required a corrosionmanagement strategy with a life expectancy of 20 years. Upon review of the testing information, 40 Britishparking.co.uk PNDec18 pp40-41 Commercial Feature.indd 40 26/11/2018 16:26