Southern Water is paying for new driveways in an Isle of Wight village so homes and local drains and sewers are protected from deluges of surface water following heavy rain. The company is reimbursing residents of Binstead, near Ryde, to replace their impermeable paved and concrete driveways and yards with permeable alternatives such as gravel and cobblestones. This slows the flow of rain by allowing it to slowly be absorbed into the environment instead of running straight into drains and the combined sewer network, where it joins with wastewater. Villagers have experienced a number of flooding events in recent years, largely due to this excess surface water, and the ‘de-paving’ pilot is one of several measures Southern Water, Isle of Wight Council, and the Environment Agency are taking to tackle the problem. Southern Water has had to activate its Binstead storm overflow up to 20 times a year to prevent further flooding of homes and businesses when sewers have become overloaded with surface water. The de-paving scheme is also intended to reduce reliance on storm overflows. Almost 250 sqm of impermeable surfaces have been removed so far in Binstead since the pilot launched six months ago, with residents offered up to £75 per sqm replaced. If 10mm of rain were to fall on that area in one downpour, it would create nearly 2.5 tonnes of surface water, which would run into our network. This water will now be absorbed into the environment instead. Southern Water plans to use data gathered from the scheme to inform a wider roll-out across the South East, with the aim of replacing around 4,000 non-permeable driveways and more than 1,100 hectares of hard surfaces over the next five years to reduce storm overflows and associated flooding. Binstead resident Adele Norman replaced her driveway and patio with permeable alternatives under the scheme, after suffering from garage flooding in the past. She said:
“My new permeable driveway and patio are a vast improvement aesthetically and, more importantly, they have resolved the surface water issues. Such a scheme not only has benefits for myself, but also the wider community. I hope that my involvement in this programme will encourage other residents to consider the part that they can play in reducing the flood risk in the local area.”
Southern Water engineer Harry Buckingham, who has headed up the pilot, said:
“The increase in paved gardens and driveways in the UK makes flooding more likely and contributes to storm overflows being activated. We are committed to reducing overflows and helping customers to slow the flow of water entering the system through measures including water butts, soakaways and permeable driveways.”
So that’s why water bills are going up
And here we have it have the answer, keep greenspace .
I am pleased for the residents in Binstead ….a very good idea ……
But with all the building on the island it is becoming a concrete jungle…..
And what does that do to aid the problem of flooding ????????
With Labour now insisting on building even more homes on the Island, will there be a condition in the plans that driveways and patios cannot be built with paved concrete instead of the method mentioned in this article?
if they hadn’t built on the field in the first place, then it would have happily soaked up the water
Surely the house owners should take some responsibly to protect their own properties?
Yet a far better way to lessen surface run off would be to ensure that all new homes had to use this, and pass the COST onto the developers to come from their huge profits, rather than getting us to pay for a ‘few’ drives from our increasing water bills.
Also due to massive numbers of illegals and legal people filling this country, then millions of extra homes will need to be built across the UK as their numbers swell as most have large or scattered offspring, all eventually requiring homes, using water, adding to sewage and creating tons of run off rainwater, which wouldn’t have occurred had they stayed in their homelands.
With the myriad of other issues they cause by being here, perhaps it would be more beneficial to end such
You started out so well, the new estates should have these drives paid by the developers. But then you spoiled the rest of your comment with unfounded claimed. A lot have come in and the Tories lied about fixing the problem, but millions of homes needed for them??? Millions??? And why did they leave their homelands, could it be because the oil companies are creating wars over oil?
Get lost fred – why don’t you go and join these parasites that turn up here – we are sick and tired of listening to you hand wringing do gooders, wanting the entire worlds dross here. We don’t want more people on the island – it cannot cope already FFS.
So well healed boomers who got their money by selling the council stock leaving nothing for the next generation get more hand outs???
In six months they have managed to do 70 square metres! Lmao