Jack Hems

All photographs in this series were taken on the top floor of multi-storey carparks in towns that satellite London.

The term 'decentralisation' refers to a government-led policy that encouraged families to leave overcrowded inner cities following the Second World War, by offering improved living conditions and employment elsewhere. The first wave of 'New Towns', passed in the New Towns Act of 1946, provided one alternative for populations moving away from city centres. This migration was somewhat facilitated by increasing car ownership and formed part of a wider national project in the UK at the time – coinciding with the expansion of the Welfare State and the creation of the National Health Service.

There is a focus on the New Towns movement as this pioneered the building of ring roads, pedestrian walkways and car parks – utilitarian architecture that is now synonymous with latter 20th century towns in the UK. The car park itself seemed a natural and symbolic subject, given the geographical and ideological influences that mass motorisation had on many of the places in which they exist.

The top layer of these structures are also ever-changing – the surfaces are exposed to continual weathering and every now and then relaid afresh with coloured tarmac and signage. Shot in bright daylight and following downpours of rain the aim is to find something exotic in these everyday spaces.

Visited and represented in this series are: Basildon, Bedford, Bracknell, Crawley, Croydon, Gravesend, Harlow, Hemel Hempstead, Kingston, Luton, Milton Keynes, New Malden, Slough, Stevenage and Watford.