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SuDS: Sustainable Urban Drainage System and Off Mains Drainage. Here be Dragons. Call me naive, but here's how I found out that I had responsibilities in this area. That was in July 2014. And since then, I have been working on it sporadically - there has always been a brighter fire burning at my feet. But now that my EPS application has been delayed (please don't ask me for details: my doctor has told me not to talk about it ) I have bitten the SuDS bullet. Part of my strategy in dealing with the issues surrounding SuDS is to listen to interminable discussions at Parish level about local planning applications. For some reason - without rationale or considered argument - almost all housing development is held to be a bad thing. Not exclusively, you understand, but generally it's a bad thing. The Fylde Peninsular (where we live) was the dumping ground in that last Ice Age for a good deal of what became clay - Glacial Till. And that makes drainage difficult. And so soak-aways are a bit of a problem. Not to mention off mains drainage. And so when, at local level, with a good deal of huffing and puffing, opposition to development occurs, most of the opposition focuses on completely irrelevant issues such as this example. SuDS is a standard requirement. Off mains drainage (locally) and SuDS cannot be avoided. And if you can't sort out a soak-away because of the clay you can't have a house. And here's how the trap is set. The details for SuDS and Off Mains drainage are agreed at planning level, but enforced by your BCO. So -stupidly in my opinion- you can commit to all that expenditure and actually build the house but fail to provide the necessary documentary evidence until sign-off looms large. No SuDS, no off mains, no house . Not a lot of people know that. Quite why, I'm not sure.

We have a new outline proposal for a housing estate nearby, and I will be making some comments - supporting principle but pointing out inadequate quality features in the scheme. This is a clip from the "Illustrative Master Plan". We all know how "illustrative plans" proposed at Outline without full compliance, somehow turn into the final plan and the non compliances can get forgotten about at Detailed. 1 - Is it normal to bury large 'lecky cables under a Balancing Pond in a housing estate? (These are *big* - they may be 33kV ,and serve thousands of people)? 2 - That looks a little close to the houses, assuming the brown road is about 5m wide. The scheme is not dissimilar to another one taken through planning nearby; not sure how the cables ended up there.

Hi everyone, can anyone message me with the name of a good-value SUDS engineer to do a SUDS strategy for my local planners. I am getting quotes. I have one quote but its both pretty pricey and he cannot deliver the report until mid-April anyway!

(Diversion of the day) This morning there was a piece on Farming Today about vanishing ponds and vanishing toads and a report from The Wildlife Trusts, and how if we did not do EXACTLY as told NOW there will be a world ending catastrophe next Tuesday etc... In my area we have dozens of balancing ponds as part of SUDS systems on new housing estates. On a 10 acre 120 house estate, they would give over about half an acre to such features, and half an acre to an acre to amenity land. I was wondering whether such ponds and the wildlife they host are counted, and whether they are actually of any benefit to eg our toads? Both our local County Wildlife trusts are not aware of any work that has been done, and had not considered these of being of interest to them. It seems to be a bit of a gap. I think that local authorities may well wash their hands of it all once built, rather than spend money monitoring, Does anybody know of any work that has been done? Ferdinand

I have a quote for a SUDS-drainage design for my 20m x 20m plot of £1,350 + VAT. Is that high? Any recommendations for alternatives? (The plot is located in Cambridgeshire if that is relevant. I need to attenuate drainage from 120m2 of roofing to a max of 2 l/s.)

Need to speak to the B/insp but what have people done about their rainwater. Initially we discounted rainwater harvesting as the cost was not worth it but we have approx 350 sq m of roof and the soakaway costs will be quite considerable. Not sure if we will have to use the plastic crates or have people used something different. Even with a harvester we would need to arrange an overflow of some description.

Hi, I've looking at the design of a driveway in a new build. The size is 6 meters deep from the street to the front of the house and 8-9 meters wide. There is a slight slope down from the street level to the front of the house. I'm planning on diverting the house gutter downpipes to an underground rainwater tank at the rear of the house. There are just two things I need advice on if someone can help me: How to ensure run off from washing a car, or any fuel/oil leak doesn't go down the downpipe drain mentioned earlier? Use of permeable paving - is the driveway too close to the house so using this would create a risk to the foundations? I'm guessing I need a separate channel (possibly where I've marked in RED) to capture any run off from the driveway and divert that directly into the storm drain, otherwise I'm risking mixing fuel/oil/detergents getting into the rainwater storage tanks. I'm keen on permeable paving but from what I've read they don't recommend it close to a house. I'm doubtful if 1.2 meters is sufficient (The wheelchair access area around the two spaces below). I'd need to understand where the water goes once it soaks through the permeable driveway aggregate so it's channeled to the storm drain correctly. I can always do a concrete driveway and build a channel into it to capture runoff but wonder about other options.....? Thanks!