Overflow car parking at All Saints Church Hitcham

Requirement: Overflow Grass Car Parking for Church Events Throughout the Year

Client: All Saints Church Hitcham

Location: Hitcham, Ipswich

Issue 

All Saints Church is a beautiful and spectacular structure that has gone under an exhaustive restoration programme.   Due to a loss of existing parking areas for events, an increase in the services offered by the church, and a lack of suitable road parking, a local farmer offered a field to be used for parking.  Restrictive planning issues, needing to keep costs to a minimum, drainage logistics and most importantly, the carpark had to be in keeping with the surrounding.   All this meant hardstanding could not be considered.  The field was levelled, compacted and sown with an amenity grass mix.

Solution

It was agreed, after meetings on site, to use Grass Reinforcement medium installed by Grassmats.  This was decided after taking into consideration soil and drainage conditions, the expected frequency of use and low costs needed to provide the solution. 

It was expected that the overflow grass parking would be used about 10-12 times a year and mainly in the warmer months.   Once the Grass Reinforcement had become entangled with the grass, the reinforcement would become almost invisible.  The matting was installed by the Grassmats install team over two days.

Benefits

All Saints Church Hitcham now have a reinforced grass car parking area which can be used all year round for overflow car parking for up to 40 cars.  The grass parking will remove the issues regarding parking for events like weddings.  

The grass car park is very much in keeping with the green surroundings and the long-term ethos of the Church.

One Year Later..

All Saints Church got in touch to give us this fantastic feedback:

“You may recall supplying us with matting to make our church overflow car park a couple of years ago.

Our car park has been a huge success, we have even squeezed just over 60 cars in with the help of parking marshals. It also survived unscathed being under 2 feet of flood water in February.”

They kindly sent us a photo and as you can see, the grass has fully grown through the mesh. The grass has intertwined with the mesh and is providing good reinforcement, allowing for plenty of additional car parking space.

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