Anti Skid Surfacing for Car Parks and Private Roads

Anti skid surfacing can be laid on car parks, ramps, private estate roads, depots and yards in exactly the same way as on a public road. The material is the same, a resin binder dressed with a hard aggregate, and so is the laying discipline. What changes off the highway is who decides. On a public road the highway authority chooses the sites from measured skid resistance and collision history and specifies the system. On private land the owner or operator decides where it goes and to what standard, and the law sets the outcome rather than the product.

That makes private sites easier to get wrong in both directions. Some never get treated where a car is braking hard on a wet ramp. Others get a cheap coloured coating sold as anti skid that wears smooth in a season. Shepherd and Sons lay anti skid surfacing on road junctions, approach zones, crossings, car parks and private roads. This article covers where it earns its place off the highway, what actually applies, and how to specify it so it lasts.

On public roads, high friction surfacing goes where braking and turning forces concentrate, on the approaches to junctions and crossings, on tight bends and on steep gradients. The same logic works on private land, and it points at the same kinds of places.

• Car park ramps, where vehicles brake and turn on a slope, often with water carried in on the tyres, and where a driver coming down meets one coming up.
• The exit onto the public road, where drivers stop at a give way line on a surface that may be polished by years of the same manoeuvre.
• Barriers and pay stations, where every vehicle stops and pulls away on the same few metres.
• Pedestrian crossing points inside a site, especially where a walkway crosses an access road or a ramp.
• Bends and gradients on estate and service roads, and the approaches to loading bays in depots and yards, where heavy vehicles brake and manoeuvre.

None of those is a rule. They are where a site's own accident and near miss records, and the state of the surface, are worth looking at first. Where the existing surface has simply worn smooth, the answer may be resurfacing rather than a coating on top of a worn layer, which is a question for the survey.

The highway specification does not govern a private car park. What does is general law. Where the site is a workplace, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require that the surface of every traffic route is not slippery in a way that exposes anyone to risk, and that it is kept free, so far as reasonably practicable, of anything that may cause a slip. For visitors, the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 places a duty on the occupier to take reasonable care that a visitor will be reasonably safe in using the premises.

Neither mentions anti skid surfacing by name. They set the outcome and leave the method to the owner, which is why a ramp that keeps catching drivers out in the wet is a liability whether or not anyone has written a specification for it. The practical consequence is that a private owner can choose any standard they like, and the sensible choice is to borrow the highway one.

There is now a British Standard for the product itself. BS 8870, as amended in 2023, sets requirements for high friction surfacing containing calcined bauxite aggregate for the surface treatment of roads and other trafficked areas, hot applied and cold applied. Other trafficked areas is the phrase that matters on a private site. Calcined bauxite is the manufactured aggregate that holds its grip far longer than natural stone, which is what separates a high friction system from a coloured coating with grit in it.

On highways, systems carry HAPAS certification from the British Board of Agrément, and what high friction surfacing is explains the types and what they are rated for. A certificate is written for highways. One current Type 1 certificate, for example, covers bituminous and concrete highways laid under the highway specification and gives a service life of five to ten years at the traffic levels in its table. Off the highway that certificate is evidence of a tested system and a trained installer, not a guarantee for a particular ramp, but it is far better evidence than a supplier's brochure.

The certificate also makes installation part of the product. It must be laid by operatives on the BBA approved installer scheme, following the agreed method statement. So ask for two things separately, the system's certificate and the installer's approval. The practical rules for laying it sit in the RSTA and ADEPT Code of Practice for High Friction Surfacing, which its publishers noted would be reviewed after BS 8870 was published.

Certified systems are graded Type 1, 2 or 3, rated by commercial vehicles per lane per day on each kind of highway site. A staff car park sees almost none, so on traffic numbers alone a lower type might look adequate. A distribution yard sees heavy goods vehicles braking and turning all day on a short approach. So the type follows the heaviest traffic the area takes and how hard that traffic works the surface, not the size of the site. Tell the manufacturer and the installer what actually uses the area, and let the certificate's table guide the choice.

Colour is a separate decision. A red or buff finish can make a crossing or a ramp easier to see, but high friction surfacing should not be specified simply to colour a surface. A coloured walkway in a car park is often better done with coloured surfacing or line marking, and car park line marking covers how the layout and the walking routes get decided.

A high friction system is only as good as what it is bonded to. The certificate requires the surface to be clean, dry and free from ice, frost, loose aggregate, oil, grease and road salt, and it rules out laying when the surface temperature is outside 5 to 35°C. Car parks and yards collect exactly that kind of contamination. Oil drips under parked vehicles, rubber on ramps and grit tracked in from outside all have to come off before the binder goes down.

Defects come first as well. The certificate asks for imperfections in the surface to be reinstated before the system goes on, so a fretting asphalt ramp or a deck with cracks still moving needs surface repairs and crack chasing before it needs a coating. On a multi storey deck with a waterproofing system, the system's own manufacturer should confirm compatibility in writing. A high friction coating that lets go can take the layer under it with it.

Few car parks or yards can close completely, so car parks are phased a zone or a level at a time, and yards are done around the shift pattern. The binder has a working time, and the aggregate has to go on while it will still take it, so each area is barriered off, prepared, laid and left until it can take traffic. Because the surface has to be dry and within the temperature range, anti skid has to be programmed around the forecast as much as around the site's opening hours.

That is also why the cheapest quote can be the most expensive. A system laid on a damp morning to hit a date sheds its aggregate in the wheel tracks first, usually where the braking is heaviest, which is exactly where it was needed.

At the traffic levels a certificate is rated for, five to ten years is the expected life. It fails in two ways. The aggregate comes away and leaves bare binder, which is a bond problem and is easy to see. Or the aggregate stays in place but polishes smooth, which looks fine and has lost its grip, so a visual check misses it.

On a public road the highway authority measures skid resistance. On a private site nobody does unless the owner arranges it. A portable pendulum test, which measures the skid resistance value that certificates quote, gives a figure rather than a guess, and it is worth doing on the ramps and approaches that matter most before the surface starts to look worn.

Have a plan or sketch marking the areas, what the existing surface is and how sound it is, and what uses each area, including any heavy vehicles. Say whether any part is a waterproofed deck, when areas can be closed and for how long, and whether colour is wanted for visibility. Any accident or near miss records for the site help to decide the extent.

Shepherd and Sons work from Little Westerhill Farm in Linton, near Maidstone, across Kent and the South East, on public sector estates, ports and private sites. Our high friction surfacing is laid to the same discipline on and off the highway. Send us the areas and what uses them, and we will tell you where anti skid is worth having and where it is not. Ring 07768 662153 or contact us with the details.