September 1956: Car park innovations

In the days before Covid it was estimated that at any one time 30 per cent of UK drivers could be found in city centres searching for a parking space.

Furthermore, according to the British Parking Association, it took those drivers an average of 10-15 minutes to find somewhere to park.

During 2018-19 in England alone, local authorities reaped the financial benefits of these quests for a space by making a combined profit of £930m from their parking activities. According to the RAC Foundation, the 353 local authorities in England received total income of £1.75bn from their on-and off-street parking operations in 2018-19, including £454m from penalties.

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

The RAC Foundation notes that at the end of March, 2020 there were 38.3 million licensed vehicles in the UK but in the US in 1956 this figure stood at 55,000,000 and the lack of parking provision was important enough for H.J.H Starks to pen an article for The Engineer addressing the problem and discussing the relatively low-tech but no less important engineering solutions to them.