The Orc
hard Close Flood Alleviation Project, which doubles up as a wildlife haven in Ketley, Shropshire, was recently named the 2016 Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) West Midlands Awards Sustainability Champion.
The project, a ‘model of sustainable innovation’, received the award for its use of sustainable methods to lessen the threat of sewer flooding for homes and highways in the Ketley area.
ICE judges commented, “This is an exceptional example of the role civil engineers play in society and the skills and knowledge they employ to benefit the wider community. We were particularly impressed with the approach to deliver a sustainable and effective solution to a long standing flooding issue.â€
The project features new foul sewers and highway drainage improvements as well as a sustainable drainage system (SuDS) that intercepts surface water run-off, two detention ponds, and micro-pools planted with soft rushes to provide future wetland habitats that will be visually attractive and will also encourage local wildlife at the same time.
Claudia Sequeira, Programme Manager at Severn Trent Water, said that they are really proud of this achievement, and that they managed to provide a solution that will increase biodiversity, improve the water quality and future-proof their network by collaborating with Telford and Wrekin Council, Amey and GHD Livigunn, on top of the main objective of the project, which was to reduce the risk of sewer and surface water flooding for their customers living in the area.
Telford & Wrekin cabinet member for Public Protection, Safety & Enforcement, Councillor Hilda Rhodes, commented, “This is a fantastic project which really highlights the importance of early inter-agency collaboration when dealing with flooding from multiple sources. The complexity of the problem was also hampered by the traffic constraints of the affected area meaning that a more catchment based approach was required.”
All involved credited the success of the project to collaboration and urged other Local Authorities to also adopt this method of working together with water companies early on in the design process.
Get bottled water cooler and mains water cooler from Living-Water.
