Drainage and water management strategies that get consent

Obtaining drainage consents through planning or detailed design can be a barrier to enabling a development to progress.

It doesn’t have to be though.

If you can engage early on with our team of environmental experts, we can appraise your land and suggest practical, solutions that will enable you to gain consent, develop your site and grow your business.

Land Studio Director Lisa Sawyer is our in-house sustainable drainage specialist with over 20 years of experience in the industry.

She looks to bring together landscape design, ecology and civil engineering, including sustainable drainage design, to offer a more holistic approach to nature led design, but also understands what is required to obtain environment consents from the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales or a local water authority.

In this month’s Water Management themed newsletter, Lisa discusses everything from drainage discharge consents and flood risk assessments. We’ve also got news about planning consent for a new caravan park which has involved all the team – landscape architects, ecologists and drainage experts.

Drainage Discharge Consents

We work on environmental permit applications for clients who require discharge of treated wastewater from onsite sewage treatment plants, whether new or existing.

Many of our caravan, lodge parks or agricultural diversification sites are in areas of England and Wales where there are no public sewer assets to connect into.

Working with Natural Resources Wales or the Environment Agency we have recently successfully completed and received approval for discharge from a site in Northumbria, with applications currently in the approval system for sites in Wrexham and Abergele.

Our experience and staged approach to fees on these types of projects mean that we work closely with our clients to guide them through the process which can be time consuming and process heavy so are sometimes seen as difficult to navigate.

Flood Risk/Flood Consequence Assessments for replacement dwellings

Replacement dwelling projects often require a Flood Risk (England) or Flood Consequence (Wales) Assessment to support a planning application and to inform the design of the replacement dwelling due to a site being located within a high-risk Flood Zone 3.? ?

The Welsh Government is due to implement a revised TAN15 which will be supported by the Flood Map for Planning. The maps show how climate change will affect the flood risk extents over the next century and indicates the potential extent of flooding assuming no defences are in place.

Whilst The Flood Map for Planning has no official status until the Welsh Government implements the revised TAN15, it does represent the best available information and Natural Resources Wales are using these to inform the planning response.

There has been a significant increase in areas of the towns along the coastline and close to rivers within the high-risk flood zone.

Whilst the aim is to steer new development to areas with the lowest probability of flooding, finding an alternative site for a replacement dwelling is not often a realistic option.

The assessment will therefore review the differences between the existing and proposed areas of development and finished level of the proposed development.

It concentrates on the opportunities for the new dwelling to provide improvements on flood risk and reduce flood risk overall by implementing design features within the scheme.

This can be through moving the building to a higher part of the site outside of the high-risk areas or providing voids beneath the new dwelling raising the floor levels outside of the 1 in 100 year plus climate change event which we are looking at on a project on the banks of the River Dee near Wrexham.?

Flood resilience measure could also be provided within the building materials so that if the building is flooded it would be quicker to return following a flood. This has helped with the final design of a refurbishment project we have worked on in Bala.

As built drainage problems

We often get asked if we can help sort out a drainage problem on a site whether a single dwelling, large housing estate or larger land estate.

We’re working on a relatively new small housing development in Cheshire where the property owners found that the below ground drainage foul and surface water systems had not been constructed in accordance with the design which was signed off at planning and which was causing environmental pollution issues and site flooding.

Working with the house owners, the local authority and the Environment Agency we are helping to come up with a practical retrofit solution which incorporates a range of SuDS features to reduce and slow the flow down through the system.

Removing cross connections out of the foul system and by providing a new foul treatment system to suit the site will also remove any pollution incidents.

We’re also working on a number of leisure sites, including a holiday park in Montgomery, where there are proposals for expansion, and we are helping the owners understand what systems they have on site. This includes what available capacity is left in the existing systems and what options there are to upgrade or provide new infrastructure.

Planning permission for a new caravan park

We’re delighted that a new caravan park in Wales has been given the go ahead.

We’re part of a team working on the change of use of farmland near Pwllheli in North Wales to turn it into a holiday park with 33 caravans and glamping pods.

Proposals for the change of use were approved this month by the local planning committee.

The applicant, who is retired from the police, will run the new enterprise with his wife and children. The business will provide holiday accommodation and also provide employment locally.

Our work has involved a Landscape and Visual Appraisal of the site. As well as landscaping with new native trees and hedgerows and a wildflower meadow, we have worked on access routes and specified new SuDS features.

If you would like to find out more about our work as landscape architects, civil engineers and ecologists please call us on 01244 319019 or email [email protected]