Sustainable Drainage Systems

Martin Wrigley Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered sustainable drainage systems.

It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Mrs Barker.

Flooding is a topical issue. In Devon, it feels like it has been raining for about a year; in fact, it probably has been since the beginning of the year. Every day we see more and more floods, and more and more problems with water. Most people will probably never have heard of sustainable drainage systems, or SuDS; when I began my career in local government, I had no idea what people who mentioned them were talking about. They first came to my attention when I was knocking on doors on a new estate in Newton Abbot called Hele Park. A chap said, “They’ve spent all this money building these fantastic flood prevention channels; there’s a nice set of attenuation ponds with steps down and all the rest. But it’s falling apart—trees are growing through it, as nobody’s doing the maintenance. Nobody’s looking after it. It falls into the grounds maintenance contracts so they send somebody out with a lawnmower to look after a complicated, engineered set of flood prevention measures.”

That does not happen only on that one estate of Hele Park; it is common across many estates. In my home town of Dawlish, in the Redrow estate the swale is currently filling up with trees. That issue is particularly important because the estate is in a critical drainage area, designated by the Environment Agency. All the water coming from the hills comes down into a single stream, which at high tide is tide-locked so there is nowhere for it to go. Consequently, it is really important that in this place the attenuation ponds do their job, which is to reduce the rate of water flowing off what used to be green fields.

Planning permission is always granted on the basis that water does not come off the hard surfaces any faster than it would off green fields, but it is not actually stated where that water has to go or what has to be done with it. For years, planners have highlighted the need for drainage systems, which take the form of bungs, ditches or all sorts of other things such as swales and attenuation ponds. Those have been put into planning applications for developers, who then spend a lot of time and money creating drainage systems.

In another development in my area, the developer is objecting because part of its site is being used to build the SuDS for an adjoining site. Normally, that would not be a problem but the original site is finished and maintenance fees are being paid for it, whereas the adjoining site is not yet finished and is building SuDS in a space that the original developer is paying to have maintained. The original developer is up in arms. But even then, the maintenance contract would not actually look after the SuDS; it would just involve cutting the grass on a bank used to access the SuDS.

The problem is: who maintains SuDS? I asked Redrow staff, “How are these SuDS going to be maintained on your site in Dawlish?” They said, “Ah, there’s a maintenance plan for all these.” They are right—there probably is, for the pumps, the tanks and the hard engineering. SuDS might be maintained by the maintenance company, but they might not be. Residents are often unaware of the need for the maintenance of SuDS and of what maintenance companies do. Again, I can see that this whole set-up could very quickly fall into disrepair. Who will be there to pick up the pieces? The developer will have gone a long time before then. The residents have already paid for maintenance, because its cost is absorbed into the cost of building the site and of buying their homes in the first place: they will be double-paying for the maintenance of the site. Then, when things go wrong, they will be the ones footing the bill to put things right again.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

What my hon. Friend has identified in his Newton Abbot constituency is a situation that exists all over the country. In July 2025, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wrote a report called “National standards for sustainable drainage systems”, which talked about a national shortage of skilled professionals to maintain SuDS over their lifetime, as well as to design and inspect them. Does my hon. Friend share my view that we need more professionals skilled in this area working at local authority level?

[Martin Wrigley]

I absolutely agree and will go on to quote the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, New Civil Engineer and a body that I discovered only recently: the Association of SuDS Authorities. I did not even know that it existed, but there we go.

We have one more estate, in Kingsteignton, where I was recently called because people were complaining. There is a lovely circular area; there is a circle of houses at the end of a cul-de-sac. It is a nice place. It was built on an old clay mine, so there are problems because of the fact that it is on a fairly difficult site, but it is a lovely situation, except that this circular area, which has a children’s playground in the middle, is always completely and utterly sodden. It never dries out. The areas around it dry out, but this particular bit does not, and people have worked out that that is because the SuDS has not been built properly and the pipes have not been connected.

The local planning authority says it looks fine on the plans, and from what we have seen it is okay. The builders are doing an investigation for me, because I have been jumping up and down and shouting, but the MP should not have to get involved for areas to have proper draining. The area is critical in drainage. It is not far above sea level. We have massive floods in the roads outside; indeed, they are ongoing. The last thing we want is the water from this estate going in and making all that worse.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) says, this is not just a problem in my Newton Abbot constituency. It is not just a problem with one or two estates; it is endemic. We have seen articles in New Civil Engineer saying that we desperately need a statutory obligation to look after SuDS. The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management says exactly the same. We need a solution to the problem of how SuDS are maintained, inspected and handed over—indeed, adopted—when the building site is finished, as the roads or drains would be. That is what residents want. It is what developers want, because they put a lot of time and effort into building these things and then see them going to rack and ruin. It is what the local authorities, the water companies and the Environment Agency want.

The existence of legislation that would automatically do what we need was brought to my attention when, as a county councillor, I served on the South West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee—yes, I get all the good jobs. It is about how we do flood defences in the south-west. As I come from Dawlish, that is particularly close to my heart—as people can imagine, given what happened with the railway line.

There absolutely needs to be a statutory obligation to put SuDS in, a statutory means of certifying that those SuDS have been built to a level that will work and a statutory responsibility to maintain them. Happily, there is legislation: the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, from 16 years ago, and it has a schedule 3 to it. The only flaw with the schedule is that no instigation date was specified; it is down to the Minister to say when that is to happen. Prior to the general election, the previous Government were in the process of having a plan to make it happen. There were big announcements and big expectations. Again, it is all written up in New Civil Engineer—a fascinating monthly read—about how great things were anticipated in 2024 and how we might see the implementation of schedule 3 in ’24 or ’25. Of course, we know what happened: the general election came along.

Last July the Government issued a new set of standards for sustainable drainage, which are a big improvement. This talks about seven principles. It talks about how to make sure that we are reusing water and there is a lot of good work in it. However, one thing is missing. The regulation says, “You could ask your local water company to adopt these drainage solutions”. People can, but there is absolutely no reason why any water company would want to do so, because there is no way that it fits into their business model. Most of these things run off natural rainwater into streams and rivers, and they are just not interested. They are finding it hard enough to maintain their existing structures for foul sewage processing. South West Water recently had three pumping stations break down in the middle of heavy rain in Kent and in Starcross in my constituency, and people were flooded with sewage. I would much rather it looked after that situation than SuDS.

We already have experts in flooding in district and county councils, and soon in the unitary councils that will replace them. Those experts have been involved in putting these schemes together, pushing for them to happen. They are responsible for managing flooding, and have a real interest in doing so. Let us go back to the solution, rather than what the Government’s guidance suggested last year. Let schedule 3 be enacted and let us get SuDS certified and adopted by local authorities.

I can see that the Government will say, “We cannot do that because it will cost money.” Yes, there will be an extra burden on local authorities that will need to be compensated. However, I put it to the Government that they are backing things like Flood Re, and this is actually a preventive measure. It costs a lot less to have the SuDS and drains built properly than for the Government to be asked for money to restore properties once they have been flooded.

In my constituency, the village of Kenton—just by Powderham castle, which itself is not in my constituency—flooded because a drain got blocked. That flood ripped through the local primary school and through half a dozen houses, which are still empty and still being restored, and that primary school is being replaced. Flood prevention is much cheaper than recovery from floods.

I urge the Minister to think about this as a necessary preventive measure. Too often over the last 60 years we have seen maintenance as the first thing people cut from budgets. Preventive maintenance is so important to keeping things working. If our drains were unblocked and small potholes fixed, and if our flooding systems worked, we would not be in some of the situations we are in now. This is a great opportunity for the Government to show a desire to increase early intervention, to make things better for residents.

[Richard Foord]

I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He talks about maintenance, but design is also crucial. Margaret Leppard, from Seaton, set up the Seaton Flood Working Group. She points out that developers sometimes use outdated datasets when designing drainage systems. She says that rainfall data from the 2026 dataset needs to be used rather than the 2013 dataset, which Baker Estates in Seaton has been using. Would he share that view?

[Martin Wrigley]

I would entirely. That is another reason why it is vital that local authorities, as the flood responsible authorities, are actually involved in certifying SuDS as they are built and take them on afterwards.

Let me quote from the Chartered Institution of Water Environmental Managers:

“Despite promises to enforce the mandatory adoption of sustainable drainage schemes (SuDS) by 2024 through Schedule 3, regulations remain stalled, raising concerns among environmental groups and industry stakeholders about the government’s commitment to sustainable water management.”

The time is now. The Minister has it within her power —even if it is not necessarily exactly her Department—to push forward, through statutory instrument or whatever is required, the enactment of schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. I urge the Minister to take that on board as a real, positive thing, at a minuscule cost to the Government, that will make a massive difference to people’s lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate. I have enjoyed sitting through a debate in which there has been so much love for previous Labour policy, because, of course, it was the Labour party that introduced the 2010 Act that both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives seemed so very keen to enact. I gently say that they had a mere 14 years—well, the Liberal Democrats had five—in which it could have been enacted. It falls to this Labour Government to tackle the issue of SuDS.

Putting that to one side, as I said to the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) earlier, my full sympathy and support go to everybody who has been impacted by flooding. It has been horrific, especially for the families, homes and businesses that are facing repeated flooding episodes. After today’s oral questions in the Chamber, I am considering how quickly I can come down and see the flooding for myself. I will pick that up with the hon. Lady, because it is really important.

Lots of incredibly important points were raised in the debate. A point was made about why water companies would not be interested, but in fact they are. The reason why many of them are is because of what we call, when it comes to water, the pre-pipe solutions. To explain that more simply, if an awful lot of surface water ends up in the sewerage system, we end up with more storm overflow incidents, because the system becomes overloaded, water spills out into the rivers, lakes and seas, and then there are pollution incidents.

There is, then, an incentive for water companies to be interested, because holding the surface water away prevents some of the pollution. There are some really good examples—admittedly in more urban areas—of that happening. A project in Mansfield involved Living with Water, the local authority, the Environment Agency and the council all working together. I am interested in looking at regional planning—this is in the White Paper—and how to bring together different interested parties in the same region to look at stopping the system becoming overloaded, which is one way of tackling pollution.

[Martin Wrigley]

I am delighted that the Minister is talking about water companies splitting surface water from foul water. That is exactly what they are doing in the middle of Dawlish: creating massive new tanks for that purpose. The programme has been going on for about two years; most of Dawlish has been dug up and its town centre has been in disarray because of it.

Throughout the last 10 years, South West Water has been talking about the separation of surface water and foul sewage, and insisting that it happens higher upstream. That is fine and proper—and, yes, it is agreed on that. However, South West Water is not interested in what happens to the surface water off estates that are already separating it out. That is not a problem that the company is addressing; it already has big enough issues elsewhere, where it is fixing past problems. That is where the SuDS come in, and that is why South West Water is not interested in those.

[Emma Hardy]

I am happy to go on to talk about SuDS, but I wanted to address why there is a collective self-interest in everybody getting involved in this, because it will help to reduce pollution. That is why it was a key part of the White Paper. Speaking personally, as someone who loves nature, this is also an opportunity to increase nature in different areas. These pre-pipe solutions do not have to be concrete tanks; they can be somewhere that is quite beautiful.

We want to maximise the opportunities offered by better managing rain and looking at where it lands. It is estimated that the average household roof collects 85,000 litres of rainwater every year—obviously a little more in your constituency, Mrs Barker, and a fair bit in Hull as well, but a little less elsewhere—which is equivalent to an estimated 4 trillion litres annually across the UK, or 1.6 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. We are therefore thinking about not just SuDS or pre-pipe solutions, but rainwater management. There are many different things we can do. That is why we want to work together with other stakeholders including water companies, environmental groups, local authorities and developers to come up with how we can collectively achieve this ambition.

On sustainable drainage, it is quite right to point out that the 2010 Act was never fully enacted by the coalition or the Conservative Government. SuDS are vitally important for sustainable development. They help to reduce additional pressure on the sewage system by up to 87%. I am a huge fan, and have spoken quite often about my love for sustainable urban drainage. They can also enable growth: a SuDS retrofit programme in London created the additional headroom for 116,000 new homes.

Since we came into Government, our record on SuDS is that in December 2024, we made changes to the national planning policy framework to support increased delivery of SuDS, so that it now requires all developments to utilise SuDS where they could have drainage impacts, and requires those systems to be appropriate to the nature and scale of the development. In June 2025, the Government introduced new national standards, making it clear that SuDS should be designed to cope with changing climate conditions, because whenever we do anything now in this country, we need to have our minds on how our climate is changing, and make sure that we are resilient for the future. SuDS should also deliver wider water infrastructure benefits in the form of flood prevention, storm overflow reduction and reuse opportunities—but of course there is more that we need to do.

As I say, some time has passed since the 2010 Act was enacted, and it is important that we consider the most efficient and effective way of securing its objectives. We currently think that that could be through changes to planning policy and adoption and maintenance, which I will come on to, rather than commencing schedule 3. With that in mind, we have been tightening national planning policy on this important issue. We are consulting on a new national planning policy framework at present, which adds the requirement that sustainable drainage systems are designed in accordance with the new national standards, to provide a consistent basis for their design and implementation.

Additionally, we are consulting on legislative and policy options to reduce the prevalence of unadopted estates and the injustices associated with them, including for SuDS. On 18 December last year the Government published two consultations, one on enhanced consumer protections for homeowners on privately managed estates and another on reducing the prevalence of estate management arrangements. We continue to collaborate with industry leaders and, since data has been mentioned, I note that we are supporting the development of a new rainwater management platform, which will provide digital tools to support the delivery of high-quality SuDS.

We are working with the industry body CIRIA—the Construction Industry Research and Information Association—to better understand the challenges around property-level SuDS and rainwater harvesting. Subsequent guidance will support industry to deliver in line with our recently published national standards for SuDS and will be publicly available. To ensure the longevity and proper maintenance of SuDS, we are scoping options for maintenance funding mechanisms and the methodology for calculating maintenance costs. We will publish guidance later this year, which will support the delivery of SuDS in line with the new national standards.

I will answer some of the questions on maintenance. We recognise the challenges relating to the adoption and maintenance of SuDS and how that can impact communities, so we are committed to ensuring they are well maintained. As I mentioned, we issued standards in June ’25, and in support of those we are currently conducting research into the funding of SuDS maintenance. We are looking with industry and experts at different funding mechanisms as well as the methodology for calculating maintenance costs.

To ensure that SuDS are provided and maintained as part of a new development, section 106 agreements can be used to provide for the maintenance of SuDS over their lifetime, where the statutory test is met. We are consulting on a new national planning policy framework to require SuDS to be designed in accordance with the new national standards, and a consultation that sets out that SuDS should have maintenance arrangements in place to ensure an acceptable standard of operation for the anticipated lifetime of the development—that is really important; it is not just about when it is built, but the lifetime of the development—building on the current requirement for those to be in place for major development proposals. The consultation is open until 10 March. I encourage Members and anyone interested to respond to that consultation.

There has been mention of specialists and making sure that we have the people we need. We need skilled planners, including specialists in areas such as ecology and infrastructure—they are essential to making sure we have proactive planning services. We know that local planning authorities continue to face challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. Ultimately, it is up to local authorities who they employ and how they do so. Nevertheless, given how widespread those pressures are, the Government are significantly expanding support through the planning capacity and capability programme, including growing the graduate and mid-career pipeline, strengthening specialist training through the Planning Advisory Service and launching a new planning careers hub to open additional routes into the profession. We are trying to grow our own planners for the future, and looking at whether an increase to local authority funding for SuDS could be required.

I hope all that helps to illustrate that this Government have not waited 14 years to deliver what the previous Government were attempting; we are getting on and delivering it now—from changes to the planning framework to ensuring that we have the talent we need, innovation, and working with others to find new ways to deliver the protection that our country needs. We are strongly committed to improving the implementation of SuDS; the actions I have outlined today are just the beginning and I look forward to working with all hon. Members in this room towards that goal.

[Martin Wrigley]

I thank everybody for their contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) accurately pointed out that SuDS, although solving local problems, need to be balanced in the wider are. SuDS is not something that can be fixed or managed on a site-by-site basis; it requires an overall view, such as one from the local authority. I also thank her for noting that Wales has implemented schedule 3 and has lessons from working with it. Although I am sure the Minister has seen that, I draw those lessons to her attention as a way that that can be made to work. I thank the hon. Member for Chester South and Eddisbury (Aphra Brandreth) for supporting the need to maintain SuDS, and for showing that this is not just a west country issue, but a national one.

The Association of SuDS Authorities supports the enaction of schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to create SuDS approving bodies. Of course, it goes on to say that it needs the appropriate funding to do that:

“Whichever mechanism is chosen to provide inspection, maintenance and enforcement of surface water drainage systems our Local Government members stand ready to ensure SuDS are considered the primary solution for dealing with surface water issues in a multi-beneficial way. By learning from the experience of the Welsh Government SAB implementation in 2019 and through consistent delivery of policy and process we support the role of SuDS in delivering greener, safer, high-quality communities.”

All that, and everything that the Minister talked about, is great. I really appreciate the amount of work that she is putting in. A lot of good things have been described, and the Act is good—it is a great Act. I like to call out good things that have been delivered, no matter the colour of the party that delivered them. I am not here to bash colour against colour; I am here to get results for local residents.

Water requires an holistic solution. In the year 2000 in Dawlish Warren—the place that was tide-locked—we had floods that were 6 feet deep. People were evacuated from their park homes by helicopter because of upstream problems, with too much water being released into Shutterton brook. Devon county council put in flood mitigation schemes, and flooding has been prevented. However, all that work will be for nothing if the 2,000 houses being built in that critical drainage area right now do not have SuDS that are certified, adopted and maintained in the long term. That flooding will return. The local authority thinks it might need pumps to empty the river into the estuary when the tide is in. That is not a good situation—that is not sustainable.

We need to ensure that the SuDS upstream are done, and South West Water is not in a position to take that on. My work in the south west regional flood and coastal committee shows a universal feeling among all the people working in the area that we need schedule 3. I thank the Minister for her attention and her words today, but I ask her to look again at schedule 3.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered sustainable drainage systems.