600 new parking bays for London

The Corporation of London has announced plans to deal with the expected increase in motorcycles looking to find parking spaces after congestion charging starts.

The Corporation’s Unitary Development Plan (UDP) 2002 states that the corporation must significantly increase the number of spaces available to motorcycles in new or redeveloped buildings with the aim of increasing the number of spaces by up to 50 per cent.

The plans will see the addition of a further 600 spaces at both the Swan Lane and White’s Row car parks with motorcycle parking taking up a complete floor at each location. The Swan Lane site, located next to London Bridge, will see the addition of 270 bays, taking it up to around 370, while the White’s Row site, next to Brick Lane, will gain an extra 330 bays to add to its existing 80. The addition of these new spaces will see the London wide total of public spaces increase by 30 per cent to around 2,500 public spaces, plus another 1,500 private parking spaces. All the new spaces will be in place by February 17.

The aim of providing these spaces inside existing car parks is not only to provide covered parking areas, but also to provide more space for each bike, therefor reducing damage to vehicles, and increase the amount of on street parking available to non commuters that need the spaces for day to day business.

Don’t forget that we still want your help in finding all of the parking bays for bikes around the country. Send us details of the sites that you know of to daniel.thornton@emap.com. You can also comment on this story on our news discussion boards by clicking the link on the right.