nowtie

We're going out to site this afternoon to dig a few holes on site. How many do you think? Hubby saying 3 more is enough? How deep should they go? We're following BRS 365 but it varies all over the place on depth varying from 300mm to 2-3m!!

No! It's not on our farm. It's a site about 2 miles away. We know the farmer who owns the field to the rear but their pond is over 200m away and up a hill!!

For the existing dwelling (well the one we demolished..) we had CCTV surveys which concluded the surface water just went into the ground and then we assumed that then went into the highways gully drain at the front of the property. We tried to this argument with highways but they rejected it and said we'd need. See below: The Highway Authority have advised they will not be in a position to authorise the connections from the site or the field ditch connection into highway drainage without evidence of a legal right of discharge as they do not allow private connections into the highway drainage network. This position will not alter without evidence being presented which authorises these connections. It is requested that an alternative drainage strategy that does not include the use of highway drainage is provided.

Thanks for responding. Yes there WAS an existing dwelling which we have now demolished ourselves but that still doesn't solve the issue of the new dwelling in the garden of the demolished dwelling which still needs the surface water condition discharged by planning. No space for a pond and even if we proposed water butts, we'd still need to demonstrate where the excess stormwater would go in case of sudden storm surges that overwhelmed the water butts if you understand what I mean?

Ah ok, well I have hit a total roadblock in terms of trying to get a condition discharged, exhausted every option now and can't start any building work until we've got the surface water condition discharged....I have put together a new thread on this, see below. Yes the site is long, narrow and has very gradual slope

If anyone has ever had a company drill a borehole soakaway can you share your experiences? Wouldn't they just be finding water at certain depths? I have approached a few drilling companies and received such a mixed bag of opinions which go like this: 1) X geotechnical company tell me a no, a borehole soakaway wouldn't work on the site 2) As above and they'd struggle to see it working as we're on Mercia mudstone 3) X Services said they'd need a hydrologist to do a water simulation report before doing anything 4) XX Drilling say a yes it would work at a depth of around 60m I attach the area BGS survey borehole records, does anyone have any expertise in this area? Would be great to get some feedback as this looks like my only option for surface water soakaway since our perc tests have failed (clay soil), Highways have said no and won't even take a call from us and the Water company has said no as well to us discharging surface water into the foul soakaway. So I'm now totally up the creek without a paddle

Has anyone had a company carry out a deep bore soakaway for surface water run off and NOT had it turn into a well?!

We're looking at deep bore soakaway and worried about it turning into a well too! I'm guessing no soakaway then?

This all sounds like what we're proposing but we've had a no from Wessex water to overflow the surface water into the foul hence why we're now stuck

Hi, yes they're civil engineers....see extract from their website and the contact who is working on it X is a privately-owned business offering civil engineering design, construction and maintenance services to domestic, commercial and public-sector clients. Civil Design Engineer with 18 years experience working as an infrastructure engineer in the UK and over 4 years experience working as a Civil Environmental Engineer in X I had a no from 2 x previous civil engineers who just said there wasn't a solution they could sign off so I went with the above engineers. Would you mind if I PM you the details?

Thanks for this. This is exactly what my husband suggested BUT our drainage engineers didn't seem willing to sign it off? We therefore went ahead with their idea of attenuation tank plus slow release into Highways gully drain but as I said before Highways has now said no and I'm running out of money! Could we put a plan together ourselves as the above and submit it? Just as a sidenote we're about 1.2m above the road. This is a pre-commencement condition that we can't seem to get discharged.

Hi I think they're suggesting I try different test holes in different locations? We're going to try again next week. My husband is a farmer/builder and so does a lot of land drainage on farm and said he can make it soak away from both properties by digging a 90m french drain in length all the way down the site (it's long and narrow) if we did do attenuation/soakaway option. Well we have now demolished the bungalow but CCTV reported it was just going into the ground...so ultimately Highways gully drain outside the front of the property. We've been trying to say that we'll reduce the uncontrolled run off rate and better what is there at the moment. This would be all fine but we also have permission to build another detached dwelling in the garden of where the bungalow was so this one is the one we'd struggle with for the surface water. Land is 0.4 acre and it's awkward shape, very narrow. I attach the location plan. Blue is the land I own. Red outline is new detached dwelling. To left is existing bungalow which weve had full planning to demolish (done) and re-build. The slope is marginal but it does slope gently down towards the narrow section (hence wanting to put a linear french drain along the whole length of site...but it has to be 5m from highway so not even sure if this is possible) Thanks for your help

OK this is great, are you sure?? Do you know of anyone who has done this before?! I'm going to tell husband we'll re-do the perc tets (he is saying "I told you we should have done this in the first place") It's been MASSIVELY costly so far with having to get drainage engineers involved (who it seems now they have their money have washed their hands of the whole thing and are telling me just to wait for Highways to get back to me...meanwhile the planning consultant is telling me we might never get a definitive yes from them to discharge into their gully since it's overloaded anyway...)

Roger that, thanks Joe We've got our own JCB (well husbands) Already gone down 1.2m and 2.4m but will try other areas on the site and at different depths. Hopefully they won't question the U-turn?

Ahh that's really interesting to read actually. I keep asking our drainage engineers the feasibility of going back to Wessex and they keep saying it's not an option. Wessex has a SUDS hierarchy which we have followed and yes it does seem in their policy that could be an option to discharge IF we have exhausted all the hierarchy but they're currently saying no due to the Highways gully. So I have emailed Wessex to see if there is any manoeuvrability so thank you so much. I'll keep you posted.