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Whatever happened to Sewers for Adoption?

Sewers for Adoption was the design guide that told developers how to build a sewer a water company would take over. It stopped doing that job in England on 1 April 2020, when Ofwat's Code for Adoption Agreements came into…
Posted on 10th September, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Dry Weather Flow: What a Dry Day Spill Tells You About Sewer Capacity

Dry weather flow is the average daily volume reaching a wastewater treatment works when it has not been raining, and it is the number every foul drainage decision in a constrained catchment eventually rests on. When a storm overflow discharges…
Posted on 2nd September, 2026
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Sewage Capacity and Planning: Why Water Infrastructure Now Decides What Gets Built

Channel 4's Dirty Business was reviewed as a "blast of controlled fury" aimed at Britain's water industry. The drama was about sewage. The consequence for anyone trying to build is narrower and far more practical: in parts of England, sewage…
Posted on 25th February, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Types of Flooding Explained: Sources of Flood Risk

Flooding can arise from several different sources, and understanding the types of flooding that may affect a site is an essential part of assessing flood risk for property, land and development proposals. While many people associate flooding primarily with rivers…
Posted on 19th February, 2026
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What Is Sewer Flooding? Causes, Risks and Planning Implications

Flooding can also occur when sewer systems are unable to carry or contain the volume of water entering them. This type of flooding is known as sewer flooding. Sewer flooding occurs when wastewater or stormwater escapes from the sewer network…
Posted on 18th February, 2026
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Ofwat Abolished: What the Cunliffe Review Means for Planning

The Cunliffe review made 88 recommendations for the water sector in England and Wales, and the one everybody remembers is the abolition of Ofwat. Fourteen months on, the picture is more mixed than the headlines suggested. Government has accepted the…
Posted on 21st July, 2025
, in IWC 
, in SuDS 
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What is BS 6297 infiltration testing for foul drainage fields?

BS 6297 infiltration testing measures whether the ground on a site can absorb and treat effluent safely, and it is what decides whether a drainage field is a workable way to deal with foul drainage where there is no mains…
Posted on 26th June, 2025
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Thames Water Crisis 2026: Sewage, Capacity and Flood Risk by Area

The Thames Water crisis has moved a long way since the record fine of May 2025, and the part that matters most to anyone building in the Thames Valley is no longer the debt. It is capacity. Ofwat's investigation found…
Posted on 28th May, 2025
, in SuDS 
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Why Hosepipe Bans Happen, and What Planning Can Do

Hosepipe bans happen when a water company decides it is facing a serious shortage of water for distribution and uses a statutory power to prohibit a list of outdoor uses. The trigger is rarely one dry month. It is the…
Posted on 19th May, 2025
, in SuDS 
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Foul, Surface Water and Combined Sewers: How to Tell Them Apart

A foul sewer carries wastewater to treatment. A surface water sewer carries rainwater to a watercourse or an outfall. A combined sewer carries both in one pipe, and spills to a watercourse through a storm overflow when it fills. Those…
Posted on 25th February, 2025
, in SuDS 
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London’s Super Sewer in Numbers: The Tideway Tunnel

London's super sewer captured 18.4 million tonnes of sewage in its first full year of operation, against a pre-tunnel baseline of roughly 39 million tonnes reaching the tidal Thames in an average year. The Thames Tideway Tunnel runs 25 kilometres…
Posted on 17th February, 2025
, in SuDS 
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Water Companies and the Planning Process: A Developer’s Guide

Water companies and the planning process are closely tied, even though the water company rarely appears on a decision notice. When you develop a site, your regional water and sewerage company is the body that confirms whether the network can…
Posted on 2nd September, 2024
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Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs): what they do and why they matter for planning

An internal drainage board, usually shortened to IDB, is an independent public body that manages water levels and land drainage across a defined low-lying area where gravity drainage alone will not do the job. England has 112 of them, covering…
Posted on 27th August, 2024
, in NPPF 
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