Enfield (London) visit
In the context of the second bilateral partner meeting in July, the City of Ostend and the Brighton & Hove City Council visited the Enfield Rainscapes. The Enfield Rainscapes, is an innovative partnership project to 'rewild' Enfield's urban rivers and re-naturalise the water system. Rivers here suffer from urban pollution, typically from road run off and misconnections. Moreover, they are often heavily modified or culverted. The project aims to improve water quality, provide flood risk management, improve public spaces, increase good quality habitat and therefore promote biodiversity.
Works to the watercourses and their catchments include the creation of wetlands, reedbeds, rain gardens and rain planters, as well as deculverting a stream through a popular park. In addition public engagement and education is key, and interpretation and access enhancements are being carried out on each site. Consultation was carried out before works, and additional project partners include many volunteers and advocates from the local community, as well as Friends groups in parks.
These SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) are useful case studies to see SuDS principles in action, hear about best practices/lessons learnt and be inspired with high quality examples.
More information on rewilding 'Enfield's Urban Rivers', can be found here.
Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS)
Sustainable drainage is thus moving away from the traditional thinking of designing. Through this system, flow velocity is controlled, the risk of street level flooding (water quantity) is reduced and pollutants are removed (water quality). Surface water run off is managed for maximum benefit.
More information on Sustainable Drainage Systems, can be found here.
