Four Ashes

Therefore, alongside our design services, our Flood Risk Engineers were appointed to conduct a suitable Flood Risk Assessment and design flood mitigation and sustainable drainage solutions. After liaising with regulators, planning permission was granted, and construction was completed in mid-2021.

Sarendon Brook is a small watercourse not regulated by the Environment Agency, and thus, no flood modelling data was available for the Flood Risk Assessment. This lack of published and validated flood levels for comparison with site levels initially made it impossible to complete a compliant Flood Risk Assessment that would be approved by the Lead Local Flood Authority and the Environment Agency, rendering the plot undevelopable.

To address this, Pick Everard conducted watercourse surveys and built a bespoke 1D/2D integrated hydraulic river model to understand the flooding mechanisms at the site and establish flood levels. This model was submitted to the Environment Agency for validation before being issued to the client to ensure its acceptance as a basis for the Flood Risk Assessment.

The model was approved, enabling us to generate a site-specific Flood Risk Assessment, including modelling the proposed drainage solutions to demonstrate that the site was not at risk.By providing bespoke modelling for this project, we proved that the site was not at significant risk of flooding, allowing it to be developed safely and cost-effectively.

The Lead Local Flood Authority and the Environment Agency were both consulted throughout the process to ensure approval would be granted at the planning stage, thereby providing the client with confidence in our proposed methodology.