Castle Debates - Managing the environmental impacts of new housing developments

Environmental ThinkingEnvironmental Thinking

Managing the environmental impacts of new housing development Castle Debates 9th February 2016

Dr Paul Ellis - Innovation Director, GeoSmart

Environmental Thinking

www.geosmartinfo.co.uk 2

Environmental impacts from housing development• Sewerage and waste• Energy consumption• Water resources• Transport links and infrastructure• Land use - biodiversity, agriculture• Flood risk and sustainable drainage



Flooding could occur anywhere and will get worse• Recent extreme weather events provide

evidence that the threat is real • 1 in 6 properties are at risk of flooding in

England• New developments should be resilient

and steered away from flood risk areas but invariably there will be pressure to build in marginal areas

• Policy and Guidance is in place to control development

• There is a need to recognise future climate change in our development plans


• Understand the risk to the development - source and mechanism of the flooding

• Strategic thinking is required from regulators and developers

• Good design is needed to mitigate the risk

Good data is key to understanding the impact

www.geosmartinfo.co.uk



Good data is available and improving

Driven by developments in the public and private sector, strongly supported by the Governments open data initiative



Risks from flooding to site development

• Land purchase value • Planning permission • Number of potential plots• Sustainable drainage requirements • Development costs• House sale price• Insurance – Flood RE is not available for new

development• Corporate image• Flood defences – do we build our way out


Risks from development – Sustainable Drainage (SuDS)

Source: (http://www.susdrain.org).

Urbanisation predicted increase11% to 13% of UK land area

Flooding and hence drainage issues are becoming more prevalent. Around 35,000 properties were affected by surface water during the major floods of 2007 (www.gov.uk). Climate change will exacerbate these risks for property owners.

http://www.susdrain.org/


What are SuDS - good design

• SuDS replicate the natural drainage from the Site before development, reducing run-off and flood risk• SuDS: swales, basins, wetlands etc. also improve water quality, amenity and biodiversity

Infiltration into the ground is the preferred method


The implications of SuDS• The Non-Statutory Technical Guidance for SuDS (DEFRA, March 2015), SuDS

required “unless demonstrated to be inappropriate”• Ministerial written statement that Government policy for England is to

introduce sustainable drainage systems via conditions in planning

CIRIA 2015, The SuDs Manual




The solution to minimising the environmental impact

•Good environmental data – accurate and cost effective• Strategic thinking - by regulators and developers•Good design – support for innovative solutions•Commercial reality – does it have to cost more•Minimise the regulatory uncertainty• Leadership – who is responsible?

Environmental ThinkingEnvironmental Thinking

Dr Paul Ellis GeoSmartESI01743 276 150 01743 276 100www.geosmartinfo.co.uk www.esinternational.com@geosmartinfo @esi_environment


Castle Debates - Managing the environmental impacts of new housing developments

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