A car park conundrum: Repair, demolish or rebuild?

North Somerset Council seeks solutions to troubled Weston-Super-Mare multi-storey car park

The partial closure of a defective multi-storey car park is costing North Somerset Council a quarter of a million pounds a year. The upper floors of the Carlton Street car park in Weston-super-Mare have been closed since late 2023 due to a number of problems.

North Somerset is paying £500,000 a year to rent Carlton Street car park, which is meant to have 350 spaces, in a lease that runs until 2058. The council made a loss of £269,000 last financial year because the upper floors have been closed due to structural issues and defective lifts. Only the ground floor is operational.

North Somerset Council is the freehold owner of Carlton Street car park. On 14 December 2012, the council granted a 200-year long headlease of the property to McLaren Life. On 20 December 2012 McLaren Life sold the headlease to Prudential Retirement Income.

The council took a leaseback of the car park – the underlease – which was subject to the headlease. The lease places an obligation on the council to keep the building in good and substantial repair and condition. It also places obligations on the council around charges and to always have 350 spaces available.

The rent was initially agreed at £435,000 per annum exclusive of VAT. This has been subject to upward only reviews and is now in excess of £500,000 per annum.

Since construction the car park has suffered from numerous maintenance issues that have impacted on its operation.

The car park has structural cracking and movement and initial investigations have been commissioned. An engineers’ report identified several significant concerns, including a significant risk of overloading due to the increased weight of electric vehicles.

All three of the lifts are not working. The top deck at the south end of the car park has been constructed so that the rainwater run-off is directed into the lift shaft. This lift is deemed beyond repair due to rainwater damage.

The deck needs to be broken up and re-laid falling away from the lifts, or the lift shaft needs to be re-built to finish on a higher level with the deck ramped up to the lift.

The parking decks are formed from concrete panels. The joints between the panels allow water to penetrate and drip onto the floors below. Waterproofing is provided by a deck coating material that also serves to demarcate the bays and circulation routes. Where the deck treatment has failed, water falls onto parked cars below. This is contaminated with calcium silicate from the concrete parking deck and sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from car exhausts which creates a slightly acidic solution that can damage car paint, leading to a risk of claims.

There is water ingress through the front elevation into the parking services office and the retail unit. The water appears to be coming in through the structure around the steel frame and projecting canopy roofs. The water ingress is also causing damage to the internal fittings and fixtures.

The car park undergoes annual fire inspections. The main concern raised by inspectors is around the lack of compartmentation and protection to the escape routes and the operation of electric vehicles, with a particular concern around the charging of EVs. The engineer’s assessment confirmed that an EV fire would lead to a risk of partial collapse of the structure. 

The car park’s fluorescent lighting system is expensive to run and spares are now hard to find. The best option would be for this to be replaced with an LED lighting system. 

The problems were set in a report to the council’s corporate, assets, transport and environmental services scrutiny committee on 3 July. The report set out options ranging from repair to demolition and replacement.

Senior technical manager Stephen Matthews told councillors: “We are tied into the lease for another 33 years. We have no choice but to keep paying the lease.”

A condition of the lease requires the council to keep the building in good order to keep 350 spaces available, but this condition is not being enforced by the landlord. However, Matthews told councillors: “If push came to shove, they could make us do each bit of repair required under the lease.”

Chair of the committee, Cllr Steve Bridger, said: “I have been a councillor for six years and it has been one of the grimmest, most depressing, damaging reports I have read.”

The options

A report presented by officers to North Somerset Council set out four options to be considered for the car park and funding has been allocated to undertake a feasibillty appraisal of four options. 

• Option 1: Permanently close the upper floors and operate as a ground floor car park only, there is a requirement for some investment to install the LED lighting, upgrade the fire alarm system, decommission and remove the EV charging within the building. Undertake structural repairs, address water leaks and carry out fire safety works. This option would provide 103 spaces.
• Option 2: Reopen all floors but with reduced capacity to remove the overloading risk from EV and very heavy vehicles. Undertake all repairs and refurbishment works including lifts, flooring, water ingress, alarms, lighting and fire safety. This would provide 283 spaces.
• Option 3: Close the car park.
• Option 4: Demolish the existing car park and re-build on the same site. This would be a new multi-storey car park and is estimated to provide in the region of 380 spaces.

In addition to the primary operation of the building as a car park, the options review will consider the potential for additional income generation from the car park with non-parking and the ability to have fire protected storage for electric bicycle parking for staff.

A feasibility study on the costs of the potential options is expected to be presented to the council by October.