SuDS drainage installation in the West Midlands

Sustainable drainage in the West Midlands

Birmingham and the Black Country drain to the Trent through the Tame, the Rea and the Cole. Coventry and Warwickshire drain to the Severn by way of the Sowe and the Avon, and Worcestershire runs straight to the Severn. New development across all of these catchments is expected to hold its runoff back, close to greenfield rates, so the rivers and the older sewers downstream don't take more water than they did before.

Under the NPPF, that expectation is applied through planning. The Lead Local Flood Authorities, created by the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, review the drainage strategy, and the conditions follow the work onto site.

What the 2025 national standards mean on site

The national standards for sustainable drainage published in June 2025 are non-statutory in England, but most major schemes have to meet them to get through planning. Three of the seven matter most to what we build. The runoff hierarchy puts reuse and infiltration ahead of any piped discharge. Peak flow control drives the size of attenuation storage and the flow control on its outfall. Standard 7, on construction and maintenance, expects buildable details and evidence that the system went in as specified.

That last point is where installation quality shows. Welded seams, a recorded test weld and an as-built pack give the maintenance plan and any adopting body something real to work from.

The hierarchy also changes which systems get specified. On the region's sandstones the engineer may well choose infiltration, while on Mercia Mudstone and the Black Country clays the same housing layout is more likely to end up with lined storage and a restricted outfall. We install both, so the choice stays with the ground and the design.

Where we fit in the management train

A SuDS scheme is a chain of features designed together by the engineer: source control, conveyance, treatment, storage and a controlled outfall. We install the storage and lining links in that chain, sequenced with your groundworker, who excavates and backfills.

• Geocellular attenuation tanks, wrapped in a heat-welded impermeable membrane.
• Crate soakaways, where the percolation results support infiltration.
• Lined attenuation basins and balancing ponds.
• Lined permeable car park sub-bases, for ground that can't take the water.

Built to your engineer's strategy

We don't design or size drainage, run hydraulic calculations or handle planning and adoption agreements. Those belong to your engineer and your client. What we bring is a build that matches the drawings, and early comments on buildability if you involve us before the details are fixed.

In Worcester that meant lining a 3,500m² attenuation basin serving around 50 new homes as part of the site's drainage strategy. At Swanhurst School in Birmingham it meant a 115m³ crate tank built to the school's drainage design.