A sustainable water strategy for 4000 new homes

ech₂o worked in partnership with Cambridge City Council’s sustainability unit to advise on the best way to make the new housing developments on the City’s southern fringe meet the Council’s requirement for SUDS and water efficiency. In the absence of a planning requirement to implement a sustainable drainage strategy, ech2o highlighted the advantages for developers of installing a variety of different SUDS solutions, and liaised with the Environment Agency to ensure solutions such as green roofs, rainwater harvesting and permeable paving, would reduce the amount of downstream attenuation required. We also calculated the water, carbon and monetary savings, as well as up front costs to the developers, for installing water efficiency measures, and/or rainwater harvesting systems across all the new sites. Cambridge City Council used the report to improve the water and carbon footprint of the southern fringe and to drive forward their sustainable water strategy for the whole of the city.