The Magic Number

Can DEFRA get Schedule 3 over the line and make 2024 the year of Biodiversity and SuDS?

At the beginning of last year, the UK government finally announced their ‘commitment’ to implementing Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. As Spring appears, and the storms show no signs of abating, will this commitment ever become a reality? Gordon Brown was Prime Minster when DEFRA began drafting the first metric for Biodiversity Net Gain, and there have been five Ministers for the Environment since 2020; the SuDS community has been patiently waiting for action. What does Schedule 3 even mean? We don’t have all the answers at R-LA, but we hope we might shed some light on the whole matter.

What is schedule 3? A Potted History of Policy
Schedule 3 was a framework for the approval and adoption of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) for new developments that was written into the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. However, it was never implemented in England. SuDS were redirected to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) where they have been encouraged but not enforced. A Jenkins Review in 2020 raised concerns about unsatisfactory standards of design and construction, and of the difficulties of ensuring proper maintenance once the developer had left the site.

In January 2023, the government announced its ‘commitment’ to implementing Schedule 3 in the UK. This would mean that SuDS would become the default option for surface water drainage on new developments (more than 10 houses). Schedule 3 would remove a new development’s previously automatic legal right to connect surface water drainage to nearby sewage infrastructure. The design, construction, operation and maintenance of these systems would be approved by a SuDS Approving Body (SAB) before any construction on site.

Why is it important?
As landscape architects, we believe this is a crucial step for all developments to help relieve the pressures of climate change, reduce surface and sewer flood risk, improve water quality and harvest rainwater to meet current and future population demands.

Flooding in the UK
Whilst flooding seems to be constantly in the news at the moment, we have always talked about the risk from rivers, seas and groundwater. What has changed over the last decade is the risk of surface water flooding; when all four risks are at play, landscapes can be dealing with unprecedented volumes of water.

Cast your minds back to the summer of 2007, when the UK suffered what was reported to be the worst flooding since records began with some corners of the country receiving four times the average amount of rain. Surface water and river flooding affected more than 55,000 homes and businesses across the country, 7,000 people were rescued, 17,000 families had to leave their homes and 13 people died (Environment Agency, 2007). The economic damage of these floods is thought to have been between £2.5 billion and £3.8 billion, (Defra, 2010).

This national catastrophe sparked a review ( Pitt Review 2008 ) into the country’s management of flooding. The review went on to identify SuDS as an effective way to reduce the risk of surface water flooding and the burden on sewer systems. Despite this, Schedule 3 fell away from the Flood and Water Management Act, which was passed in April 2010.

Nearly seventeen years on, the tenth storm to hit the UK since September 2023, Storm Jocelyn, left our shores at the end of January, and the MET office continues to issue yellow warnings for heavy rain as we type. UK Climate Risk’s Technical Report (2021) stated that we can expect a 1% chance every year that monthly winter UK rainfall will be 20% to 30% higher than the maximum observed.

One thing is clear, the risk of flooding in this country isn’t going anywhere and with urban populations rising, the damage is only set to increase. We can’t keep building higher and hope that we can outwit water. We must work with it. We need to make space for water within the landscape and not consider it as a waste product to dispose of as quickly as possible. We need to slow it down and create space for it to be stored and to attenuate naturally. SuDS is the natural solution.

Welsh Lessons
In January 2019, Wales adopted Schedule 3. Slowly but surely SuDS are beginning to be thought of from the outset of a development, providing sufficient space on site for SuDS, with assets incorporated into the Welsh landscape and public space provision of the site. Covid has certainly slowed progress and there are important lessons that England can learn from her neighbours, but it is a step in the right direction and Westminster would be mad to miss this opportunity.

If Schedule 3 is implemented, it will help ensure that SuDS are designed, constructed and adopted to national standards for the lifetime of the development. The policy must also insist on proper maintenance, and this will require a sustainable funding

mechanism to be agreed upon.

ARUP produced a Post Implementation Review Report for the Welsh Government in May 2023 which outlined several important recommendations including:

Training for SABS Data collection and reporting from SABS on annual performance to feed into national annual reporting of statistics and performance indicators
An agreement is needed for developments that have already received planning consent before Schedule 3 but have yet to start construction. Should they have to apply for SAB consent?
Ambiguity and inconsistencies within guidelines and standards must be reduced.
A SuDS focus group should be established to work on delivery, shared lessons learnt and best practices
A clear list of scenarios that do not require SAB approval is needed to reduce ambiguity
Third-party to regulate SAB functions
Service charge approach levied by local authorities as a mechanism for funding of long-term maintenance.
Clear maintenance schedules and agreements need to be put in place
Strengthen national design guidance

For Schedule 3 to work, it will depend on skilled professionals with the expertise and knowledge to design, construct, assess and maintain SuDS. This is a moment for landscape architects and drainage engineers to step forward and take charge to ensure the future sustainability of our landscapes. Schedule 3 will have a significant impact on local authorities and developers; now more than ever, disciplines must work together and get this right. SuDS is the natural solution.