Thames to help fund £60M green surface water management schemes
12 January 2019
Thames Water will partner with stakeholders and local authorities to fund £60 million of surface water management (SWM) schemes including green spaces, removing hard, impermeable surfaces such as concrete and asphalt in areas most at risk of flooding.
The project will create more sustainable solutions across 65 hectares of land in total to reduce the amount of rain and flood water entering the company’s vast sewer network, and counter flooding in urban areas.
Reducing the volume of water entering the sewers also provides greater capacity in the network to support future population increases in London and the Thames Valley, which is growing at twice the average of the rest of the country.
The initiative is a feature of Thames Water’s recently published £11.7 billion business plan for 2020-25, with £1.1 billion assigned to activities that will protect and enhance the environment.
Tim Beech, Thames Water infrastructure planning manager, said: “The climate is changing and, with our population expected to rise, flooding and rainwater during intense storms is an issue we need to tackle now to protect our communities in the future.
“We’ve launched a fund to deliver schemes with the potential to drastically reduce the impact surface water has on our sewers.
“Green infrastructure can be installed in almost any urban environment and the wider benefits are hugely valuable, as the spaces for our communities will provide attractive and natural areas for leisure and recreation.”
