News

Flood Management CDP Event

With the Flood and Water Management 2010 Act of parliament becoming law on 12^th April 2010, the East Midland branch held a CDP Event in Chesterfield, with guest speakers from the Scott Wilson International Consultancy.

Scott Wilson are one of the leaders in the field of Infrastructure and Environmental Engineering, and have considerable experience in the development and undertaking of Floor Risk Assessments, where Michael Timmings, Principle Engineer from the Water and Environmental team based in Nottingham described the efforts made from the severe Floods which occurred in 2007 to improve and place duties on Local Authorities to enforce drainage improvement within the planning system.

The Impacts of the Flood damage which occurred in the UK during 2007; where 55,000 homes were effected by flooding, with insurance payouts amounting to £3 Billion. In Gloucestershire 140,000 homes were without water, the electricity supply in the area was compromised and motorways closed.  In Rotherham a dam was close to breaching, resulting in the closing of the M1 and the combination of the released of reservoir water to stabilise the dam, and floodwater in the watercourses lead to extensive flooding of residential areas. No single public agency was found to be responsible for floor related issues on subsequent inquiry into the events, with commissions and panels set up by the variety of interested bodies reporting, which combines into the recently introduce Flood and Water Management Act.

The Flood Risk Assessment Document (SFA’s) places the duty with he local Planning Authorities and local Government, which will require all development to undertake a Floor Risk assessment, with planning document PPS25 being a central planning tool on every development across the country. The requirement will be for a preference to design to reduce or minimise floor risks, or where not possible to put in place solutions to reduce the risk by either deducing vulnerability or designing to reduce impact and damage with exclusion methods. All developments will require attenuation systems to deal with surface water run off and no discharge will be allowed into water courses as fold rates.

Tim Benson form the Infrastructure Engineering sector of Scott Wilson then described four developments where they had designed the Water management facility (SUDS) or sustainable urban drainage for a number of schemes;

                        Glasshoughton, Castleford – Attenuation scheme – Waystone Limited

                        Doncaster Schools – SUDS – Vicini Limited

                        Sheffield Halam university residences – SUDS – Bovis lend Lease.

                        South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue – SUDS – Direct

Fourteen Members and guests attended the event which was enjoyed by all, with a lively Q & A session arising after the presentation.

Two members of Chesterfield Town Council had received invitations (obviously with forwarded mails from another source), who were expecting the local developers to be answering questions on problematic flooding in the area. Our presenters, who are also a local employer, with the Scott Wilson Infrastructure office being located 2 minutes walk from the venue, were able to explain the liabilities’ and where the solutions were to come from. The Councillors were satisfied with their answers.