8 minute read
SuDS Regulations
Glasgow Claypits Panmure Gate Walkway. Glasgow’s inner-city nature reserve. © LUC
Scotland
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 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, 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.
Wales
Ian Titherington
On 7 January 2019, Wales jumped into the unknown and enabled Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010; the first country globally to have statutory SuDS legislation for new construction. Up until that point, I had been a drainage engineer in Welsh local government dealing with drainage planning conditions, often relying on the goodwill of developers not to ‘value engineer’ out SuDS. As a SAB (SuDS Approving Body) officer, I finally got what I wanted, based on the six statutory standards in the Welsh legislation. Very much like planning permission, without SAB approval you cannot legally build.
After almost five years of the SuDS laws, Wales has now reviewed their use and, despite the challenges of Covid, local government funding squeezes and an utter lack of drainage industry expertise, many are reasonably pleased with how things have gone. My new role in Wales is to help the Welsh government deliver many recommendations of this review, working closely with the SABs, developers and all other associated interests.
One of the initial pitfalls was a pre-legislation rush to get planning applications in before the SuDS laws commenced (be warned, England). Many developers believed that this would be cheaper and easier but they were mistaken as the new legislation, if used as designed, should not cost more or take longer – it simply means better design. Pre-SuDS design layouts are frankly inferior. There is nothing more frustrating than dealing with a layout that considers surface water last instead of first, and this is what statutory SuDS actively discourages. Experienced drainage designers love this legislation, because it enables them to show a client what can be achieved by prioritising the consideration of rainfall, whilst invariably keeping a similar development density.
However there have been and continue to be challenges, which have been largely covered in the recent and excellent SuDS Schedule 3 PostImplementation Review¹ by Arup for the Welsh government. Wales has one layer of local government and so by having the SABs at this level, they can work in parallel with planners to ensure that neither trips each other up during the design process. This works well but Welsh councils, as with the rest of the UK, have had to manage significant funding cuts and seriously struggle to recruit or maintain technical services. This, along with a chronic shortage of drainage expertise in the UK, is affecting all areas of water engineering, and not just SuDS. Also, there needs to be greater consistency of delivery and simpler and clearer application processes. Whilst the latter two will be resolved as review priorities, the lack of trained technical officers will require a short-and-medium-term UK workforce plan.
Many find that statutory SuDS is no panacea. I believe it is a truly transformative change of circumstances, particularly if England can learn from the hard lessons Wales has gone through and commence statutory SuDS in the near future. Designing and constructing greener and cleaner places to live and work is most certainly a universal remedy –it’s simply better design.
Ian Titherington is Senior Policy Adviser – Sustainable Drainage, Water, Flood and Coal Tip Safety Division, Welsh government.
England
Sue Illman
England has suffered from an unfortunate series of last-minute changes to the direction of SuDS policy, which started when the government did not enact the final piece of legislation covered by the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. This created the current system, which is both ambiguous and restricted in its scope, and consequently doesn’t deliver the water management we need to both prevent flooding and create a more sustainable water management regime.
However, change looks likely, with high hopes that new policy will be delivered soon. Focus groups have been working with government for much of the last year to help shape the new policy, and to ensure that ‘get out’ clauses, ambiguity and a lack of effective policy wording does not continue to undermine its important intent.
The Welsh model has been useful for England, allowing us to learn from Wales’ experience and avoid some of the pitfalls. The need for simple wording with absolute clarity of intent is essential to ensure that the desired outcome is delivered.
It has taken many years for developers to understand that SuDS do not need to be expensive or difficult to build, if their design team fully understand how to integrate it within development. The key is to consider its integration from the outset, and always make it central to any design, or even as a feature in its own right. Good approaches to SuDS allow us to work in partnership with our engineering colleagues to design effective engineered solutions that look good, function well and are robust. But we also need to lead the way, become knowledgeable, and be prepared to stand our ground authoritatively on design issues.
A recent review of developer opinions¹ on using SuDS ended with an important comment – that making SuDS policy mandatory would ensure there was a level playing field when bidding for sites.
So what does the new legislation look like? In the hope that none of the proposals have been radically changed, SuDS policy will become mandatory for all development of more than one single dwelling – a radical change from the current situation. However, there will still be some exceptions.
The Welsh system has a SuDS Approving Body (SAB) in each local authority and we will need a similar structure of well-trained people to take on that role. It is assumed that this will be funded through the fees for SuDS approval. Again, if we follow Wales, then developers will not be able to commence construction on site until they have both planning permission and SuDS approval.
The new legislation should, at the time of going to press, have been written and be on its journey through both Houses of Parliament, prior to final approval and Royal Assent, after which it should be law in autumn 2024.
