Park life BPA member offer Car Park Design is due to be published on 5 June 2023, and is available to pre-order now from istructe.org/shop BPA members can benefit from a 35 per cent discount on the standard price (offer valid until 31 December 2023). Contact thelibrary@istructe.org, providing your BPA membership number, to receive a discount code for use at istructe.org/shop In addition, the media and various campaigns complain that there arent enough public EV charging points, and government grants and funding are pandering to this mantra. We are allocating millions of pounds of taxpayers money to expand kerbside and residential charging when no-one really knows what the future standards will be. And what about the role of the EV charging hubs and purpose-built recharge facilities? We seem to be deploying EV charging infrastructure in panic mode, but we must be careful not to reinforce the view that every space needs an EV charger. It will lead to a massive over-supply of charging infrastructure, at huge cost and with a high risk of redundancy or obsolescence. Im old enough to remember the VHS vs Betamax vs Video 2000 debate in the space of 25 years, it was replaced by the DVD. Now on-demand streaming is the order of the day. New designs The Institution of Structural Engineers is publishing a new Car Park Design guide this month. Much has changed since its predecessor was released 12 years ago, and it has been completely rewritten, with significant input from BPA Parking Structures Group members to make sure our car parks remain safe places for all who use them. Many of our older car parks are now being refurbished, introducing wider bays more generally, increasing provision for people with disabilities and parents with children, and including way-marked pedestrian routes. The look and feel of our car parks is being transformed and rightly so. Our members have produced some amazing, truly iconic buildings, in the main driven by better design standards. Britain has an enviable record in car park design and construction. Our car parks are intrinsically safe from the outset. The last time we had a significant collapse was 1997, at Pipers Row car park in Wolverhampton. The Liverpool Echo Arena fire in 2017 was significant, but it did not cause a collapse of the building although some contend that was more by luck than design. Both were seminal events in the history of Britains car park safety and we must not be complacent. Is it just that car designs are getting bigger, or are more people buying bigger types of car? People are getting bigger, too. All this drives (pun intended) a demand for bigger spaces. Do we need more new and bigger car parks? Importantly, and inevitably, wider spaces will lead to fewer spaces in thousands of existing car parks. Weight limits will further reduce the available parking space for many. Yet, many politicians and people seek more parking space. How do we square that circle? Safe and sound But wait! Self-parking cars may not need bigger spaces, and their needs will be different because they can park further away and be summoned when needed. Active travel will reduce our dependency on cars. Do we really need bigger car parks with the same number of spaces? Wont EV batteries get lighter, and range increase so well need to charge them less often? Do we need to shore up and reinforce all our car parks? Is it all a load of? Who knows? Regardless, every car park building should have a life-care plan. Seems obvious, but do they? Owners and operators should use the opportunity of refurbishment and EV charging infrastructure installation to include a structural analysis of the car park building. Finally, a loaded question: can you be confident that, throughout their working life, all your car parks will remain safe and sound? Kelvin Reynolds BPA chief technical services and governance officer kelvin.r@britishparking. co.uk 56 PN June 2023 pp55-56 Park Life.indd 56 23/05/2023 12:21