Polypipe bolsters flood defences at new £2.7m medical centre

The 1,191sqm Churchdown Surgery in Churchdown, Gloucestershire can serve 20,000 patients, with consulting rooms, nurse treatment areas, training rooms and a large car park. Polypipe, consulting engineering frm EPG and civil engineer NGB Cheltenham had to deal with a water table that left only 130mm of cover in large hard landscaped areas, which meant a shallow attenuation system was required.

The village of Churchdown is prone to flooding. In 2007, Gloucestershire was hit by 78mm of rain in just 12 hours.

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

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. Permavoid was also selected due to its high structural load capacity.

Rosie Cheetham, marketing manager, Polypipe, 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 the design process to develop and deliver a modern, intelligently engineered SuDS solution that was easy to install.”