The Quadrant car park in Swansea, a council-owned car park that is attached to the shopping centre, has recently undergone a transformation on all its levels. The two main driving forces behind the works were the deteriorating structure, and the need to upgrade the environment for the people using it.

Makers was given the job of bringing the car park up to scratch and making it a welcoming, clean and bright facility that customers would want to use.

Works included upgrading the lighting and putting down deck coatings that included parent and child and DDA demarcations. At the same time Makers carried out a small amount of electrochemical work. The company has done the external works, putting in new cladding panels around the perimeter and redecorating the stairwells by putting in 'proper anti-grafitti' coatings. In addition the decision was made to increase the number of CCTV cameras and increase the size of the attendant's office, also adding a window hatch to make the car parking team more accessible and customer friendly.

Divisional technical manager for Makers Peter Cowlard says: "We are aiming to get a secure parking award for it - that was one of our driving forces."

The project which was due to have completed at the end of May runs alongside The Quadrant shopping centre's own refurbishment project which includes turning a former bus terminal into more parking, mainly for disabled customers.

Cowlard adds: "There is little doubt that with the increased lighting level and coloured deck coatings and white soffit coatings, the environment is definitely better and the council has acknowledged how good the refurbishment has been.

"It's achieved everything the local authority wanted. One of the notable areas is on the ground floor, which wasn't concrete but black asphalt which we have now colour treated. It's an unusual treatment as usually it's hard to put a product on asphalt. But it's a decking system much like you see on roads these days like red islands on the roads before traffic lights and roundabouts."

For car park operators looking for a fast way to improve their tired surfaces, Flowcrete has come up with a solution in the shape of Deckshield Rapide - a fast-track installation system for car park decks. Flowcrete has introduced fast-cure polyurethane modified methacrylate technology to its time-proven Deckshield system for rapid installation techniques.

Deckshield Rapide offers incredibly fast drying time, as low as 20 minutes between coats, and allows for unlimited overcoating times.

Group managing director of Flowcrete Mark Greaves says the process "can be problematic, particularly if the weather takes a turn during installation." However, he points out that with the Deckshield Rapide this is not an issue. "Due to the fast cure times of the product, the next coat can be applied within minutes of the first layer," he says.

Sikafloor decking systems have been installed at an award-winning car park owned by Norwich City Council. The St Andrews car park had 27,000 sq m of concrete decking on its six levels and all have been treated with Sikafloor protective systems, applied by specialist contractor Mitie Flooring. The deck systems used provide a hard wearing, abrasion, slip and chemical resistant surface, while also allowing free use of colour.

Matrix recently refurbished the George Yard multi-storey car park, which serves a shopping centre on the outskirts of Braintree. The company carried out repairs to the external facade of the three-level car park. This included the replacement of expansion joints and the rebuilding and reinforcement of sections as well as concrete repairs throughout the entire structure.

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