Government urged to consider engineered SuDS in flood mitigation

The Plastic Pipes Group (PPG) has written to the government agencies responsible for flooding, urging them to recognise the important role engineered sustainable drainage systems (SuDs) can have.

PPG, a specialist group within the British Plastics Federation, has volunteered to meet with organisations including DEFRA, DECC, the Environment Agency and the Department for Communities & Local Government to voice concerns on proposed government SuDS guidance.

Caroline Ayres, director of PPG, said: “Our members have considerable experience in flood management and drainage across a broad spectrum of solutions. We feel that the latest flooding raises questions about the proposed draft National SuDS standards and guidance documents which appear to place particular emphasis on managing storm water on the surface, or as close to the surface as possible.”

According to PPG, surface solutions often work through evapotranspiration but the recent prolonged rainfall allowed little evaporation to take place, resulting in exceptionally high ground water levels, with flood water taking weeks to infiltrate into water logged ground.

PPG says a solution to this would be to store excess surface water below ground, out of sight and reach of homes and businesses, until it can be safely discharged into rivers or other watercourses.

Ayres added: “There must be further exploration into the most effective means of controlling surface water. It is time to give more consideration to how engineered SuDs systems can complement and be incorporated into landscaped SuDS schemes.

“House builders tell us they prefer to have the option to implement engineered SuDs systems, and are willing to pay for them. Such structures increase land availability and enable them to better meet the demands of their house building programmes. If the cost of building these systems is paid for by private investment we can see no reason why government would not wish to encourage their use.”