In 2016, Civic Engineers delivered comprehensive guidance to TfL entitled “SUDS in London: A Guide" on how SUDS can be seamlessly integrated into London's streetscapes and public realm.

In 2016, Civic Engineers delivered comprehensive design guidance with Landscape Architect Jo Gibbons to Transport for London. Entitled, “SUDS in London: A Guide,” it set out how Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) can be seamlessly integrated into London’s streetscape and public realm. The guide was formally adopted and is relevant to all publicly-accessible space in the capital, including roads and streets under TfL’s remit, which equates to 80% of London’s landscape. It won an NLA Award that year.

This crucial guidance responded to the Mayor of London’s Climate Change Strategy which cites surface water flood risk as the greatest short term climate threat for the Capital. This threat has increased in severity due to sewers being at or near capacity and a rapidly increasing population and increased rainfall due to the effects of climate change.

Case study evidence and street scenarios were developed to show how SUDS may be provided within the many different street types across London, with suggestions including permeable pavements, tree planting, tree trenches, the creation of ponds and wetlands, bioretention systems and filter drains.

8 years later, the guidance has unlocked urban challenges with longstanding history and provided a framework for securing approvals for new SUDS schemes. As one example, the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, originally unable to secure funding and approval for a scheme on Australia Road, leveraged the guidance to update proposals in line with TfL’s new requirements and policy position. Further north, in the London Borough of Haringey, the systems thinking advocated by the guidance preceded the solutions found for improving the public realm around White Hart Lane and its Overground station.

This guidance encapsulates the kind of progressive urban infrastructure engineering design we need to make our streets more climate resilient, greener and safer for active travel.

Stephen O'Malley, CEO, Civic Engineers said:

“Guidance is essential to positive change: it provides the policy framework to enable concepts and ideas to transition into delivered schemes. The ‘2016 TfL SuDS in London - A guide’ does just that, however almost a decade later, its application and implementation remains in the margins rather than the mainstream. The need for employing these techniques has only increased as our climate has continued to become more extreme, with more frequent and widespread flooding, and higher temperatures. We simply need these methods to become standard.”