DRAINING & PLUMBING IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN…
…but it’s the right thing to be. Polypipe Civils and Green Infrastructure’s rebrand is about making the most of the growing importance of green infrastructure.
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t is a truth increasingly accepted that every housing development and every city scape must be in want of a few trees and green spaces.
Green spaces are good for increasing biodiversity, for providing a home for wildlife and for rain and stormwater management, as well as the health and mental well-being of the population.
On the back of this, Polypipe Civils & Infrastructure has changed its name to Polypipe Civils & Green Urbanisation, from 1 January 2020, reflecting a shift in focus towards a more holistic approach to water retention, re-use and management. Green infrastructure - green roofs, gardens and trees, incorporating water storage and management systems within an urban environment is nothing new. It has been talked about for some years. However, in many developments and plans, it has been something tokenistic or an architectural afterthought because it’s hard to place a monetary value on the value that trees and green spaces bring to an urban plan or housing development.
Green urbanisation effectively takes sustainable drainage and green infrastructure which up till now has always been rather tokenistic afterthought for architects and planners because it prettifies, it’s seen only as an aesthetic consideration. There is also the issue that there is no real financial gain to be seen from giving up land in housing developments to put in more trees and green space. In fact most greens paces in developments are given a nominal value of £1. Yet there is evidence to suggest that the savings in terms of wellbeing and mental health and health and fitness are huge if you have green spaces around you and built in to development planning. Green urbanisation is a more adaptable approach. It brings in aspects of green infrastructure and green urban assets, integrating them with sustainable water management solutions. It’s not just about drainage, it’s not just about green spaces; it’s about both and more.
“As Polypipe Civils and Green Urbanisation, our new mission statement is to be the leading manufacturer of innovative water management and green assets offering solutions that enhance sustainable and resilient development,” says Michael White, divisional marketing & development director at Polypipe Civils & Green Urbanisation. “It’s that last bit – sustainable and resilient development that is key to what we are doing. We aren’t green washing the business, we are investing
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in technology that will back this up.” The green urbanisation journey began in earnest with Polypipe’s acquisition of Permavoid just over a year ago. “A high-load bearing sub- base replacement system, Permavoid provides shallow stormwater retention and can be used under permeable, hard surfaces such as roads or car parks or under soft surfaces, where its unique passive irrigation system can act as a water source for grass and plants. White says: “What difference does green urbanisation make? In essence, a very traditional drainage system collects and releases water, getting it away as quickly as possible. It’s very much been an attitude of ‘water is bad let’s get it away from our building and this environment as quickly as we can because don’t want that to penetrate the building stricture. Or flooding or causing problems.”
“Moving on, a conventional SUDS system works on the principle of collect, hold, and release. This means there is a lot more volume of water in developments because you’ve got a lot of below ground structures and the planning requirements would mean that you have to add in and when part of the planning requirements for developments means there are things like ponds, swales and ditches simply hold the volumes of water, these were part of the SUDS toolkit, so there is an element of green asset built into SUDS if developers so chose. Many didn’t bother but there are examples of developments where they have incorporated them, some with greater success than others, it has to be said.
“The green urbanisation model brings that green infrastructure into the forefront and creates above ground green assets where we have range of technologies that work in key areas.”
These key areas include Blue/Green roofs. Green roofs have been around for a while but their problem is that during dry periods they die back, turn brown and can lose the ecological
benefit they initially brought. Polypipe’s Permavoid system has inbuilt capillary cones which retain water in a void beneath the soil and via a high performance Geotextile that, upon receiving the storm water from the cell via the capillary cones, transports the stormwater laterally across its surface area and percolates it up through to the root base sustaining the green roof above it.
Roofing, specifically blue/green roofs for building is just one of the benefits of the Permavoid system which the company is promoting via a new campaign entitled From the Ground Up. This aims to spread the word about the need for a more holistic and collaborative approach from the easily stages of planning and design via architects, landscape architects, planners, merchants and contractors.
“Podium structures within cityscapes, stadiums, pavements and driveways are all key areas for this message,” White says. “The huge benefit with Permavoid is that it means our conversations are not just about green roofs or huge urban green spaces. The system is scalable so we could be just easily be talking about a single driveway or the roads and driveways in a small to medium-sized housing development as a redeveloped city street-scape. If you lay a green roof over it, you can lay a lawn and it will have the same benefits. White says that there is – almost – 100% acceptance that climate change is real and is serious. The so-called once-in-a-hundred- years storms are happening with increasing frequency. By 2050, they are more likely to be happening every four or five years. “We are getting more weather, more often: the intensity and frequency of both storms and intense dry spells is increasing. We need to be building resilience into our urban landscapes to mitigate the effects of this climate change. We can do this by harnessing the benefits of green urbanisation.” BMJ
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net February 2020
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