KEY FACTS

CLIENT

Durham County Council

YEAR COMPLETED

2015

BUILD TYPE

New Build

SERVICES PROVIDED

Flood Alleviation and Mitigation Design
Drainage Strategies
Flood Risk
Utilities

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BWB was approached by Durham County Council to design an effective flood alleviation plan for the village of Lanchester, County Durham. Regular flooding at the village has had a considerable impact on homes and businesses with a severe storm in 2013 resulting in elderly residents being rescued from their homes.

The council were so keen that BWB work on this project due to our knowledge of the local area's flooding and drainage issues that they recommended we join their framework specifically so they could procure our services. Indepth on-site investigations included drainage modelling for the entire village plus CCTV drainage surveys, topographical surveys and trial hole surveys. These studies highlighted problem areas such as saturated ground in the surrounding fields and blocked watercourses.

An effective drainage scheme was then devised at a cost of £800,000 less than the Environment Agency's £1.2 million budget. The council will be submitting the proposals to the Environment Agency in the next few months and if approved the works are scheduled to begin in January 2016.

Key Challenges

Substantial cost savings were found as this flood alleviation plan was specifically designed so that all works are carried out on land owned by the council. As a result the proposed scheme would cost just a third of the £1.2 million grant which has been made available by the Environment Agency. It is hoped that the savings can be used to fund further flood alleviation schemes in the area.

KEY CONTACTS