Susdrain Awards: The Best in SuDS Design
We were delighted to attend the annual Susdrain Awards in London this week, as part of our commitment to supporting and recognising the best in SuDS design.
Susdrain is a community that provides a range of resources for practitioners involved on delivering Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). SuDS help to manage flood risk and water quality, as well as provide amenity benefits and great places to live, work and play.
GeoSmart is an active and proud supporter within this community.
The inaugural awards were held at the iconic City Hall on the south bank of the River Thames in London. It attracted over 40 case studies from across the UK, with a strong focus on the important role that SuDs can play in mitigating surface water flood risk. This is especially the case in London, which already has most of its sewers at full capacity.
Paul Ellis, Managing Director of GeoSmart attended the event and discussed with delegates the forthcoming Sewers for Adoption guide and other key milestones along the road to the wider mandation of SuDS and better SuDS design.
There was also an impassioned call for re-wilding urban areas in a keynote speech from Theo Thomas, the London Waterkeeper – an independent charity set up to challenge polluters and defend rivers in the capital.
SuDs Design Delivering “Transformational Change”
The overall award winner was a scheme in West Bar in Sheffield, which retrofitted a 23 swale system into an urban streetscape in Sheffield. It is part of multi-phase regeneration project aiming to transform the Riverside Business District.
It delivered a positive transformational change to both the environment and other economic, habitat and well-being benefits. It also demonstrated a clear reduction in impermeable areas that would normally drain to the combined sewer and a diversion of controlled and cleaned surface water to the River Don. The judges considered it to be the “epitome of high quality SuDS design”
Picture courtesy of Susdrain – Left to right: Roger Nowell, Lucia Lorente-Arnau, Zac Tudor, Sheffield City Council – Overall SuDS Awards Winner.
