paving car park 8

Close to the border of England and Wales the church site of St Agatha holds a history extending back over 1000 years. The earlier medieval building fell into disrepair and was replaced by the current Victorian structure in 1843. Since then the church has faced a number of challenges including in 1990 the rarity of an earthquake that caused damage to the building.

The latest challenge has been the need to accommodate car parking within the site to offset the damaging affect of vehicles driving onto the grassed areas bordering the former graveyard where a number of historic artefacts remain.

The decision was taken to convert the grass verge into new parking areas that would maintain a natural grassed appearance. It was also important to have a self-draining surface that wouldn’t call for a separate piped drainage and the subsequent need for extensive offsite enabling works. Ticking the boxes on both counts was the reinforced concrete Grasscrete system.

With a projected maximum load requirement of 10 tonnes the 100mm thick Type GC1 was selected and was installed to form a 5 metre ribbon of parking to the side of the driveway.

With construction access limited by the narrow entrance there was a need to double handle bulk materials into position and the concrete and topsoil were placed by Grass Concrete’s Contracts Division using a telescopic handler.

For a site where marriages happen on a regular basis it’s perhaps appropriate that one of history and of modern environmental technology should prove to be so successful.