Cycle parking standards for a London application

London cycle parking standards are minimums, set by land use in the London Plan, and they are split into long stay for residents and staff and short stay for visitors. For residential schemes the long stay requirement is one space for a studio or one-bedroom home and two spaces for anything larger, with short stay set at a much lower ratio across the whole development.

That calculation takes five minutes. Fitting the result into the building, at usable spacing, with a route somebody will use twice a day in the rain, is the part that changes the plan.

Working out the long stay requirement

Take the unit schedule and apply the residential figures directly: one long stay space per studio and per one-bedroom home, two per dwelling with two or more bedrooms. A block of 40 one-beds and 60 two-beds needs 160 long stay spaces before anything else is considered.

For non-residential floorspace, read the standards table in the London Plan rather than working from memory, because the rates differ by use and some are more demanding in central London than elsewhere. Mixed use schemes add the requirements together, they do not blend them.

Set the calculation out as a table in the Design and Access Statement, with the unit or floorspace input, the standard applied, the policy reference and the resulting number. Officers check the arithmetic, and a table they can check is a table they stop worrying about.

Then compare that number with what the drawing shows. If the drawing shows fewer, the application is not valid in several boroughs, because cycle parking appears on local validation lists.

Short stay provision and where it goes

Short stay is for visitors, deliveries and anyone stopping for under an hour. It belongs in the open, close to the entrance, on simple stands that a passer-by can see.

It does not belong in the secure store. Putting short stay spaces behind a fob-controlled door means they will not be used by the people they are for, and a case officer who spots it will ask for a revision.

Where the frontage is public highway, the borough may accept provision on the footway under its own street furniture programme, usually with a contribution. That needs agreeing early, because it involves the highways team rather than the planning team, and their programmes run on their own timescales.

Weather protection for short stay is a nice-to-have. Weather protection for long stay is not optional.

Store dimensions and clear height

Capacity depends on geometry, and the governing figures come from the cycling design guidance rather than from the policy table.

Work to stands at around 1,000 mm centres, an allowance of about 2 m for the length of a parked cycle, and access aisles of about 2 m so a cycle can be turned and reversed in. Stands against a wall are usable from one side only and need more space per cycle, not less.

Clear height is what catches basement and undercroft stores. A single-tier store needs headroom for a person wheeling a cycle. A two-tier system needs considerably more, plus the swing space for the upper tier, so the structural soffit and any services below it have to be established before the layout is drawn.

Doors need to be wide enough to wheel through without turning the handlebars, with an opening arrangement that works when both hands are on the bike. A self-closing fire door on a tight landing is the detail that empties a store.

Two tier racks, stackers and what they cost you

Two-tier racks raise the count per square metre, which is why they appear on almost every scheme that struggles for space. They come with conditions attached.

Upper tiers need gas assistance to be usable by anyone who is not tall and strong, and a store relying on unassisted upper tiers will attract comment. Some boroughs limit the proportion of spaces that can be two-tier, and most expect the ground tier to be allocated where possible to people who need it.

Semi-vertical and vertical hanging systems save floor area and suit fewer users, particularly with heavier bikes. Wall-mounted hooks are not a general solution.

The honest test for any system is whether a person of average strength, holding a child's hand, with a pannier on the bike, can park it in under 30 seconds. Where the answer is no, the spaces exist on the drawing and not in use.

Larger cycles and step free access

A proportion of long stay spaces, commonly 5 per cent, should be designed for larger and non-standard cycles: cargo bikes, trikes, tandems and adapted cycles used as mobility aids.

These are clear floor areas rather than stands, roughly 2.5 m by 1.2 m, with a wider door, a turning space in front and step free access all the way from the street. Locate them nearest the store entrance.

Step free means step free. A lift serving a basement store has to have an internal car long enough for a cargo bike, and a stair with a wheel channel is not an accessible route. Where the store is below ground and the lift is small, the larger cycle spaces should be at ground level instead.

Where the transport case for the scheme relies on cycling, that reliance belongs in a Travel Plan with targets and monitoring rather than in the store count alone.

Where a borough standard goes further

The London Plan sets minimums, and boroughs can and do require more, or set additional design requirements, in their local plans and supplementary documents.

Check the borough's local plan policy, its own cycle parking standard, and any design guide for the area or the estate. Where the borough standard is higher, it applies. Where the borough standard is silent on a point the regional policy covers, the regional policy applies.

Do the check before the design is fixed. Rebuilding a core to add 20 spaces at technical design stage is expensive, and adding them badly, in a store reached through a bin room, produces a store nobody uses and a condition nobody can discharge.

Keep the cycle store and the refuse store separate and give each its own route. A Waste Management Strategy that shows the bin store on a sensible collection route makes the cycle store easier to place, because the two compete for the same ground floor positions.

Drawing the store so it gets approved

Put everything on one dimensioned plan at a readable scale.

1. Stand type, with the centres dimensioned rather than shown as symbols.
2. Aisle widths and turning space.
3. Clear height, and the soffit level where it varies.
4. Door widths, swings and any level change or threshold.
5. The larger cycle spaces, dimensioned and located.
6. The route from the street and from the lift, with gradients where relevant.
7. Lighting, surveillance and access control.
8. A schedule counting the spaces by type against the policy requirement.

An officer with that drawing can approve the store without asking a single question. An officer with a hatched rectangle labelled cycle store will ask several, and each round costs a fortnight.

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