Located in Gloucestershire, the village of Churchdown – home to almost 11,000 residents – is prone to flooding. In fact, in 2007, the county was hit by 78mm of rain in just 12 hours so, when plans for a new £2.7million medical centre in the village were confirmed, it meant that measures were needed to protect it from flash floods.

Alongside consulting engineers from the Environmental Protection Group (EPG) and civil engineer NGB Cheltenham, Polypipe Civils & Green Urbanisation [Polypipe CGU] were able to provide a solution that incorporated a shallow attenuation system – necessary due to a water table that left only 130mm of cover in large hard landscaped areas.

Building on an initial design by contract engineer Rutter Johnson, a mixed product solution - which included Permavoid for use beneath a large permeable paving car park and two Polystorm tanks utilising anti-floatation measures in soft landscaped areas – was supplied.

Due to the high water table, a 150mm deep system using 2,614 Permavoid cells delivered 138m³ of stormwater storage beneath the hard landscaping surface. The project also benefitted from Permavoid’s high structural load capacity.

Rosie Cheetham, Marketing Manager at Polypipe CGU, said: “This is a great example of a collaborative approach delivering a system that will serve a community for years to come. Our water management experts worked closely with all parties from the early stages of design process to develop and deliver a modern, intelligently engineered SuDS solution that was easy to install.”