Sustainable Drainage
SuDS Implementation Project
On 25th October 2019, the Sewerage Sector Guidance (Sewers for Adoption 8th edition) was published for implementation on 1st April 2020. This enables Wessex Water to adopt Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) as part of a surface water sewer network. This is a step change within the water industry. Calm Engineering was appointed in February 2019 to manage the implementation of the Sewerage Sector Guidance.
About the project.
The key aims of this Project were to:
Ensure a collaborative approach with all Local Planning Authorities
Encourage uptake from developers
Ensure that surface water drainage is considered at the earliest opportunity to maximise the potential for innovative SuDS schemes
Simplify the process for developers and Wessex Water Staff to enable easy implementation
The focus of our approach to this project has been to educate our Client on the importance of the standards and processes for adoption, how important implementation and inspection will be to successful delivery, and the potential for real social, economic and environmental change within our living environment should this be delivered in the right way.
We were able to bring to bare our wealth of experience working within local planning authorities to inform the project direction. We have collaboratively worked with all departments within Wessex Water to understand their processes and procedures in the development of a succinct SuDS Policy document (which is currently published on the Wessex Water website - provide link?). We have been working with partners in the local authorities to coordinate with the planning process and emerging SuDS Guidance and policies within each local region. One of our biggest challenges has been to find a coordinated approach across the whole of the Wessex Area. Different LLFAs often have different standards/ policies with regards to SuDS. To overcome this, Calm Engineering proposed to deliver a suite of workshops over the course of 2020/21 to input valuable feedback from the LLFAs into the guidance and policies already drafted. We felt that the key to this process was to adopt an adaptive approach, using the documents as a ‘working draft’ to enable true collaboration to be realised.
Through 2020/21, Calm Engineering will continue working with Wessex Water through the process of adoption, providing expert support and training, running workshops for the local planning authorities and feeding back into the SuDS policy document and internal processes. We hope that we can really start to affect change through this work and provide Local Authorities with the teeth to push for better SuDS schemes for all developments.
