The project started in Spring 2022 and aims to finish by 2025
Severn Trent Water, working in partnership with Mansfield District Council, is investing £76m in installing sustainable drainage systems across the town, to create a greener, cleaner Mansfield to help protect against flooding, while bringing big community benefits.
New Year, new drainage for Mansfield!
20th December 2022
Severn Trent’s £76m investment in Mansfield is well underway in the town centre, with the New Year set to bring more improvements across the town to help reduce flooding.
Working in partnership with Mansfield District Council, the company is helping to redevelop the former car park off Queen Street into a memorial garden, with work set to continue after Christmas with some changes to parking and the taxi rank happening.
The company is installing sustainable drainage systems across the town, to create a greener, cleaner Mansfield to help protect against flooding, while bringing big community benefits.
Helen Purdy, Green Recovery Project Team said: “We’re really pleased with the progress this project is making, and we’re excited about the changes happening in the Town Centre that will help reduce flooding, while also making it a nicer area to visit.
“So we can make these improvements and due to the location of our manholes on our network, we are having to make some short term changes in the town centre. We want to make sure people are aware of these when they come to visit the town in the New Year so everything can run smoothly, and everyone is aware of what to expect. The changes are needed for safety and include some traffic management, and a temporary change to the location of the taxi rank.”
Severn Trent’s contract partners Galliford Try are carrying out the work on behalf of the company, which is set to begin mid-January.
The key changes taking place in the Town centre in the New Year are:
Market Place – road closed for two weeks from 16 January 2023.
Queen Street – closed between Queens Walk and Exchange Row from 30 January 2023 until the end of April.
The taxi rank will be relocated from 30 January 2023 until approximately end of April 2023.
The new taxi rank will be on Stockwell Gate.
Disabled parking spaces on Queen Street will be replaced with a loading/unloading area.
“We are really sorry in advance for any disruption following the changes we’re making, and we want to give everyone enough notice to be able to plan and prepare their visit to the town in the New Year,” adds Helen. “Every effort is being made to carry out this work with as little disruption as possible, and we’re thankful for everyone’s continued support as we continue to work in the town centre, and wider areas.
“When this project is completed, those living and visiting Mansfield will be able to enjoy a greener town, that’s protected from flooding while having more green spaces and areas to enjoy – there’s so many benefits to this project, and we’re excited for the community to enjoy them when we’ve finished everything in 2025.”
Working alongside Mansfield District Council and Nottinghamshire County Council, this is the largest project of its kind ever to be attempted in the country.
When it’s complete, the scheme will be able to store over 30 million litres of surface water – that’s about 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools. In real terms this means reduced flood risk for 90,000 people and the creation of 390 jobs locally, too.
It’ll be the blueprint for how we manage flooding in the future. And at the same time, it makes Mansfield an even fresher, greener place to live for our customers and communities.
Say hello to SuDS
SuDS are Sustainable Drainage Systems, Severn Trent have been working in Mansfield Since 2022 and will continue until April 2025 installing more than 340 of them across Mansfield.
They work by diverting surface water away from sewers, slowing it down and helping our drains to cope.
The great thing about SuDS is that they combine some of the latest water drainage technology with Mother Nature.
So at the same time as reducing flood risk, they cut pollution and bring more plant and animal species into the places where we live.
Detention basins
Across Mansfield there are two types of detention basin. The first has been designed to separate surface water from entering the combined sewerage network during heavy rainfall, stop the network from becoming overwhelmed and help to reduce flooding.
The second type of detention basin has been designed to capture water during heavy rainfall and help reduce flooding downstream by providing additional storage capacity before entering the sewerage network.
The basins are dry for most of the time, but if you see it filling with water, don’t worry it’s doing its job.
Permeable paving
Permeable paving – used for carparks, walkways, and other hard surfaces, contains lots of tiny holes.
These holes allow water to pass through and soak slowly into the ground beneath.
So we can make our streets more flood-resilient while keeping the parking that residents need so much.
Verge rain gardens
Rain gardens use plants and soil to retain and slow the flow of rainwater from surrounding hard surfaces.
They also help cool urban areas in the summer, so even when it’s not raining, they make a positive difference.
Bioswale
A lot like detention basins, bioswales store water and release it slowly into the ground or drainage network in the same way. They’re generally smaller than bioswales and can be found in smaller green spaces. They’re filled with plants that help to filter and hold the water. They have shallow channels with sloping slide. Bioswales are normally dry but during heavy storm events can fill up with water, holding this back before slowly releasing back into the drainage network.
As work is underway again in Mansfield Town Centre on Severn Trent’s £76 million project to help protect the area from flooding, teams are continuing to install SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) at a rapid pace in other areas of the town.
Teams are continuing to work hard in Ravensdale to install over 232 environmentally friendly interventions that will slow surface water down by storing and filtering it before returning it to the network, meaning the network isn’t overwhelmed in storm events.
Eight rain gardens, 24 areas of permeable paving and a tree pit have been installed across Ravensdale so far, as Severn Trent turns to nature to transform Mansfield over the next couple of years and make communities more resilient against the increasing threat of flooding from climate change, population growth and urban development.
On some interventions, water will be held and released back into the ground naturally, meaning that it doesn’t enter the sewerage network at all. When the whole project is completed in 2025, the SuDS will capture around 58 million litres of surface water – the equivalent of around 23 Olympic-size swimming pools.
The work will also have a secondary benefit of a reduced need for storm overflow activations, which will improve river health locally, and support Severn Trent’s Get River Positive commitment that its operations will not be the reason for unhealthy rivers by 2030.
Adam Boucher from Severn Trent said: “The progress we’re making on this exciting project will deliver huge benefits to communities in Mansfield. Our teams have been moving full steam ahead to complete our work in Ravensdale as quickly as possible. We’ve also finished installing the SuDS outside of the shops on Ravensdale Road, with planting work to follow in early autumn.
“We appreciate everyone’s patience whilst we work – we realise that our temporary lights on roads such as Newgate Lane, Carter Lane and Eakring Road can be an inconvenience at times but I’d like to thank everyone for their understanding as we complete this project that will have a wonderful impact for 90,000 local people in the area.
“We’re doing all we can, alongside our partners Galliford Try, Mansfield District Council and Nottinghamshire County Council to complete our work in Ravensdale as soon as possible, and develop a greener, cleaner vision for Mansfield.”
Portfolio Holder for Environment and Leisure, Councillor Andy Burgin, said: “The progress that has been made at Ravensdale so far is a really exciting milestone in this project to make Mansfield district cleaner, greener and more flood resilient.
“Severn Trent’s innovative programme interlinks perfectly with the council’s ongoing plans to ‘green up’ Mansfield. Our urban greening project works are coming to fruition with the opening of the Memorial Garden and Pocket Park in the town centre and ongoing partnership work to plant more than 3,000 trees across the district.
“The council has been working with Severn Trent to minimise traffic disruption during these innovative and exciting installations, and I would like to thank residents in the area for their patience whilst they are taking place. I am confident as the roll-out of these sustainable drainage solutions continues that it will help to make Mansfield more attractive for people who live, work and visit the town.”
For more info on the work in Mansfield, please visit stwater.co.uk/Mansfield.
