Intelligent integration of parking is key element in the success of residential layouts in use as evidenced by research for Space to Park. This is a follow up to ‘What Works Where’ the English Partnership/Design for Homes guidance on approaches to parking published in 2006. It gives updated recommendations based on current policy and research into user satisfaction with parking at 402 schemes in Kent. Six case studies selected from the 402 schemes record why user satisfaction as an average was as low as -83%.

Parking in use was recorded on a Saturday morning when most people would be at home. Each case study is illustrated with a diagram showing rogue parking or “cars parked not in accordance with design”. In the case studies visited on Saturday mornings fifty percent of parking was outside allocated bays with people preferring to park on street (or pavement) rather than in courts.

The second of the four recommendations is: “Allocated parking spaces should cater for the average parking requirement of households based on the house size. Unallocated spaces should provide for at least twenty percent additional spaces.”

Link the maximum number of allocated spaces to the average car ownership. One and two bedroomed houses and flats – one space, three bed units – would have a mix of one and two spaces (depending on their location) and four bed plus – two spaces.

Ideally this figure would include garages that to be counted need to be at least three meters wide internally.This level of allocated spaces needs to have around twenty percent of unallocated spaces to take up the slack.

The research demonstrates what is already quite widely understood that over reliance on rear parking courts does not work well with actual user behaviour and that a variety of approaches to parking should be adopted in schemes to give more flexibility.

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www.spacetopark.org

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Space to Park (2013) is part of the AHRC funded Home Improvements Knowledge Exchange and has been developed jointly by Urbed, Design for Homes and the University of Edinburgh.

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