Drake Circus, the new £200m shopping centre in Plymouth being brought forward by P&O Estates and due to open next month, has a multi-storey car park designed to the Automobile Association's Secure Car Park standard. The pay-on-foot car park located above the centre, provides 1,270 spaces including disabled spaces.

The car park, which is to be managed in-house, will have dedicated entry and exit ramps in an attempt to keep queue times to a minimum, while inside there will be wider spaces, more headroom and white-painted finishes with good directional signs for both cars and pedestrians.

The exterior is clad in laser cut, aluminium alloy in a repeated pattern, similar to a William Morris screen print.

And in the centre of Leicester Gollifer Langston, appointed by Hermes and Hammerson as car park, landscaping and residential architects for the £350m new Shires mixed-use development, has unveiled a bespoke mesh cladding system for the high-profile 2,000-space multi-storey car park, due to open in 2008.

The new design invokes an hexagonal weave effect inspired by the town's traditional textile industry. Richard Brown, Hammerson's senior development executive of retail with responsibility for the new Shires development, says: "It was essential that the car park reflected a human scale, without dominating the surrounding cityscape."

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