Midlands-based water company Severn Trent is investing £76 million into a community integrated SuDS project in Mansfield to alleviate flood risk during storms. The multi-million-pound flood-resilience project, in partnership with Mansfield District Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and other third-party funders, seeks to achieve an overall investment of £85 million.
The above figure forms part of the company’s £565 million Green Recovery programme, announced in May this 2021 and designed to support the UK’s green economic bounce back by creating 2,500 new jobs in the Midlands. This is in addition to supporting a number of water-based projects such as trialling the creation of two bathing rivers in stretches of the River Leam and the River Teme.
The new SuDS scheme not only strengthens resilience against the increased threat of flooding but also to population growth and urban development in the years to come. Alongside environmental benefits, the project also hopes to provide economic and social benefits, including the creating of new jobs, improvements to health and wellbeing, increased biodiversity and a reduction in pollution.
In the initial pilot for the project Severn Trent will work with Nottinghamshire County Council in the residential area of Ravensdale. Here SuDS will be incorporated into Mansfield District Council’s proposed memorial garden located in the town centre, due to begin construction in March 2022.
In addition to the Town Hall memorial garden site, Severn Trent plan to further enhance the town centre with several new rain gardens to capture and retain surface water during storm events.
When it’s complete, the scheme will be able to store over 58 million litres of surface water – that’s about 23 Olympic-sized swimming pools. In real terms this means reduced flood risk for 90,000 people and the creation of 390 jobs locally.