Six-storey car park to be built at city’s rail station
ANEW multi-storey car park is scheduled to be built by mid 2024 as part of the £80 million redevelopment of Plymouth’s railway station.
Plans have been submitted for the structure, which aims to be more modern and accessible than the current concrete car park opposite the station entrance.
The new car park will have 460 parking spaces arranged over six storeys and EV charging facilities, with capability to expand as demand increases in the future.
It will also have a mobility hub which will offer more transport choices to reduce private car use. This could include electric bikes, electric vehicles available for hire, bike parking, lockers for delivery and storage. There will also be disabled and family parking spaces.
The new car park’s location heralds a significant change to how private vehicles will be allowed to use Station Approach.
It is intended that all private vehicle trips to and from the new multistorey car park, once operational, will enter and exit from North Road East (Station Approach), which will be widened into two lanes rather than the current one-way configuration. This will remove the majority of the vehicle movements from exiting via the front of the station, create more space and improve the welcome for visitors arriving at Brunel Plaza.
Should the scheme be given the go-ahead, the car park will be built to the east of Intercity House on the site of the former Rail Incident Safety Centre (RISC) building.
If all goes according to plan and permission is granted, work could start as soon as autumn, 2022, and should be completed by summer, 2024.
The proposed multi-storey car park is another piece of a complex jigsaw that will see the gradual transformation of the entire area around the station and the creation of Brunel Plaza.
Once the new car park is open and operational, the old multi-storey will be knocked down, creating development sites for further university campus extensions and a new hotel.
Major work has been progressing at Intercity Place – the tower above the station, with existing fixtures and fittings being removed from the building to prepare for its wholesale refurbishment as a new Faculty of Health for the University of Plymouth.
Work is also nearly finished on doubling the size of the ticket gateline on the station concourse to make it easier and smoother for passengers to get in and out of the station. Changes are also being made to
the entrance to the station and to improve the retail offer on the concourse and the platforms. The current entrance will become a café area, with a smaller entrance for some passengers. The work should be finished by the end of 2021.
The University of Plymouth has signed a long lease on the Intercity House building and has brought in contractor Kier to carry out work, with the revamp expected to end by spring 2023.
The University of Plymouth said in the summer of 2021 that it is making “significant progress” on the project to create an “outstanding” facility for its Faculty of Health in the 11-storey building. Revised plans for Intercity Place have been approved by Plymouth City Council, which allows for
facade amendments that will support a sustainable heating, cooling and ventilation strategy.
The project is on schedule to be finished well in advance of the 2023/2024 academic year, meaning that new students arriving in September, 2021, will be able to train in its facilities during their course of their studies.
Plymouth City Council leader Nick Kelly said the car park planning submission was “another big step in the right direction for this massive project”.
He added: “I am pleased to see the design detail includes plans for a mobility hub, which will help people who visit Plymouth to make greener choices about how they travel around our city.”