Our Director of Operations, Jo Bradley, has been out and about recently and she has been very impressed with some of the sites that she visited. Jo decided that it is high-time that we rewarded designers and practitioners who are delivering outstanding SuDS schemes across the UK, that are managing stormwater beautifully, so she created a new award! A ‘Bravo from Jo’ is a simple, virtual pat-on-the-back for the schemes that are quietly doing their thing, and delivering good SuDS.
The first ‘Bravo’ was awarded to the Pounds Park playground in Sheffield that was designed by Arup and Timberplay with Sheffield Council, and it incorporates SuDS around the park to capture and manage surface runoff. But it also incorporates water-play in and around the park for the visiting children and adults. When Jo visited, there were children playing with the water as it flowed around the channels and through the valves and penstocks. One young boy was merrily pumping water up through the little fountain and playing in the flow of water, and another was turning the Archimedean screw to pump water up into the sand and water table. A lady and her son were squealing with delight as they went up and down on the see-saw, pumping water up through the tallest fountain, so that it fell down and showered everyone! To see people enjoying water like this is fabulous; it helps them to connect with surface water and to see how water can be pumped, stored, moved and used. The Park is magnificent and everyone involved in its design and delivery should be very proud of themselves.
The second ‘Bravo’ was awarded to Lancashire County Council highways team for their delightful road-runoff treatment-pond near Broughton. This pond was designed as part of the SuDS to treat the runoff from the new Broughton By-pass and it is designed to hold the runoff back so that pollutants can settle out and be treated by the sunlight, the micro-organisms and other natural process in the pond. The day that Jo visited was warm and sunny and there were dragonflies humming all around the pond, and the plant life was looking fabulous in its Autumn colours. Well-designed treatment ponds like this can be an excellent part of good road runoff treatment schemes and Jo hopes that it can be used as a case-study and many more similar devices can be included across the British road network.
