36 ROUND TABLE REVIEW
schemes which is driven by lack of knowlede artin fro eadeet said that getting maintenance right is also key to helping residents become more accepting of these new features – he said that regular planting, such as poppies in one recent eadeet case study, shows people that the area is being looked after.” Steve Wilson of EPG said that “from international experience, wherever there have been large-scale SuDS schemes are successful is where there have been massive public awareness campaigns so people are educated about them,” and warned that currently in the UK this was “non-existent,” so education is in severe need of improvement. “The Government really need to get to grips with it and make people aware of why it’s there.” Is SuDS genuinely a ‘win win’ for small developers and their customers, and could the Four Pillars be potentially easier to achieve on some smaller semi-rural schemes, than their more space-compromised urban counterparts?). Perhaps more importantly, who is driving SuDS adoption in residential schemes, are custoers so unaware of the benefits that developers have to sell it to them, whether or not there’s any commercial advantages for the housebuilder per se? Chris Carr posed the question as to whether developers should include SuDS as part of marketing to customers, iven that his fir ebraces it as a positive.” Sue Illman gave the view that it should be included in the booklets which housebuilders tend to provide their customers when they get the keys, explaining features of their new home. Chris responded that while “education could sometimes be seen as lecturing, in this case it’s really positive,” due to the host of benefits that u can brin developments. He added: “We have to have a USP as a small builder against the volume housebuilders, but it needs to be”layered with things like open space, biodiversity and the Future Homes Standard, it can’t be just an engineer designing for SuDS.”
“EDUCATION [OF CUSTOMERS] COULD SOMETIMES BE SEEN AS LECTURING, IN THIS CASE
IT’S REALLY POSITIVE,” CHRIS CARR, FMB NATIONAL PRESIDENT
WWW.HBDONLINE.CO.UK
Charlotte Markey questioned whether homeowners were “pushing from the bottom up to get SuDS implemented; there are loads of case studies of beautiful schemes, but have people aesthetically got used to such a poor baseline that they’re not actually demanding it from housebuilders?” Chris Carr commented: “We have to sell it to them,” and Matt Clutton from Cameron Homes agreed that there is a long way to go with consumer buy-in, given that “a lot of people are moving towards astroturf for gardens.”
HOUSEBUILDERS’ CHALLENGES When it came to how the volume housebuilders were approaching SuDS,
Steve Wilson recounted to the group his experience of being called in to train volume housebuilders’ planning and buying teams on SuDS design, as “they recognised the commercial advantage, and that it would be a lot cheaper if you get it right from the start.” He added: “They also recognised that land take isn’t an issue if you design it right, conversely, if you put appalling SuDS in that are ‘bomb craters,’ it is going to take a lot more land, and probably cost more to build, and people aren’t going to like it.” What are the key issues for
housebuilders in complying with SuDS in the current context? Procurement is riven with problems, and some planning authorities may be more amenable than others when it comes to creating comprehensive SuDS schemes as part of new developments. Our panel discussed the issues around the hierarchy of decision-making in projects, and the organisational and bureaucratic obstacles that overcomplicate things. Steve Wilson of EPG told the rou there were a lot of artificial organisational boundaries that ake u difficult technically its straightforward,” adding: “What we really need is a wholesale rewriting of surface water legislation.” Jamie Gledhill of Brett Landscaping pointed out that a major nut to crack in the procurement process was Highways departments, who “do tend to be the main blockers” when it comes specifying SuDS projects. Chris Carr admitted there were issues with SuDS features in highways, although it may seem like one of the best locations to introduce them. For example, swales are seen as incompatible with highways services connections such as street lighting, meaning that two rows of streetlights may not be possible. However he said that this is feasible “because of the issue with energy costs now, local authorities are happy to reduce street lighting.” He admitted that while some maintenance was straightforward, such as ponds, when it came to long stretches of swales for example next to highways, this was much more challenging. “We might have two or three thousand metres of swale,” Carr commented.
Is it a myth that SuDS costs more than a traditionally landscaped and road network-oriented scheme? A 2013 Defra study even found that well-designed, landscape-based SuDS should be cheaper than traditional drainage with underground storage, with less pipework. Ruth Clarke from Innovyze asked whether housebuilders “were able to charge more for properties based on the increased amenity, or are SuDS still just seen as a necessity to get planning?” Land take is the key issue in terms
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