On average there are 41 fires in multi-story car parks every year

In 2017, a fire engulfed an unsprinklered multi-storey car park in King’s Dock Liverpool, destroying upwards of 1000 vehicles. The blaze left an estimated insurance bill of £20 million and lost revenue for the car park owners in the region of £24,000 daily. The car park was demolished 12 months later and replaced by a nine-storey facility completed in 2020 at a cost of £30 million.

Initial estimates of the cost of installing a sprinkler system in the car park were within the range of £600k to £950k; considerably lower than the costs incurred as a result of the fire – costs that not only affected the adjacent Liverpool Echo Arena but smaller businesses and the city as a whole. Thankfully, the new eight-storey, 1450-space car park at King’s Dock has been built with an automatic sprinkler system.