F E AT U R E
SuDS Regulations
1. Glasgow Claypits Panmure Gate Walkway. Glasgow’s inner-city nature reserve. © LUC
Scotland 1.
David Winter SuDS has been a requirement for new development in Scotland for 20 years. The Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2023 amended the Sewerage Scotland Act 1968, to include SuDS under the definition of a public sewer. However, this amendment only altered the last building block of the SuDS concept, which deals with the 'end of pipe' treatment. An opportunity was missed: by only changing the legislation relating to the Scottish Water part of the surface water system and not considering regulatory changes to drainage of road water through SuDS, this meant that only a partial implementation of the SuDS concept was applied. To date this has delivered 'SuDS' in all developments of two or more houses in Scotland. However, the predominance is for basins/ponds at the end of piped surface water drainage systems. As SuDS are vested in public ownership by Scottish Water, the minimum standards are usually applied by the development community. So, these factors 14
combined have meant that Scotland is falling short of the full potential offered by SuDS. In practice, we find that the planning of roads and housing layout is carried out first, without due consideration of how surface water needs to be drained through the site. This generally leads to a ‘piped’ system with a pond/basin tucked away on the edge of the site predicated by the housing layout. Coordination with landscape architects appears to come very late in the planning process, except for a few exemplary projects that have aimed to integrate regional SuDS with landscape design. Urban SuDS retrofit has been atypical across public sector drainage and flood risk; urban regeneration; road programmes and active travel planning. There appears to be little consideration of the management of rainwater as part of these works, with the norm being a replacement of 'like for like', and innovative thinking is often valued-managed out of a project. The Scottish government has reinforced the need to set surface water management in the context of wider planning activities at policy level, through the Water Resilient Places Policy¹ and National Planning
Framework 4,² which specifically includes blue-green infrastructure within considerations for an 'infrastructure first' approach to development planning. Within these policies, the Scottish government highlight the importance of taking a placemaking approach to achieving blue-green cities and water resilience involving partners in the public and private sectors, the third sector, individuals and communities. This support at a policy level is beginning to translate into practice through a collaborative place-based approach to planning for surface water and drainage which is being developed between Scottish Water and a number of cities across Scotland (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow) through formal drainage partnerships and exemplar projects. David Winter is Technical Team Leader, Wastewater Service Strategy at Scottish Water.
tps://www.gov. scot/publications/ water-resilient-placespolicy-frameworksurface-watermanagement-bluegreen-infrastructure/ documents/ 1
Sets out the national spatial strategy for Scotland, including principles, regional priorities, national developments and national planning policy, and sets the intent to protect and enhance blue and green infrastructure and their networks. 2
