BWB Consulting - Integrated Engineering and Environmental Consultants
Residential Development at Shireoaks in Worksop
Location: Nottinghamshire
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BWB were appointed by Bovis Homes to provide specialist flood risk advice to assist in the planning of a residential development alongside the River Ryton in Shireoaks, Worksop.
The site benefited from a planning approval that was some years old, which had been granted prior to the publication of PPG25. Floodplain compensation works that had been designed and conditioned within the original planning consent did not meet the current design criteria stipulated by the Environment Agency (EA), who consequently raised an objection to the latest development proposal.
BWB reviewed the project and quickly identified that the floodplain storage in question was controlled by culverts and a railway embankment immediately downstream of the site. As such, it was concluded that it should not be sensitive to the ´level for level´ type floodplain compensation being demanded at that time by the EA. BWB redesigned the flood compensation area to enhance the developable area of the site.
Negotiations were undertaken with the EA to secure agreement to volumetric compensation, but not ´level for level´, to agree proposed floor levels and to minimise drainage attenuation requirements. Following a series of meetings with the EA it was agreed that the solution would be demonstrated by hydrological and hydraulic modelling of the river and drainage systems.
BWB subsequently prepared a model of the system and flood frequency analysis calculations that demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the EA, that the proposed mitigation works achieved, albeit by a different method, the EA´s principal criteria. The EA subsequently removed their objection and a new planning approval was granted.