Severn Trent has recently completed its £76m project in Mansfield, transforming the town into a more flood resilient community.

Since 2022, the water company has been retrofitting sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) across a number of locations in Mansfield. In total, 343 SuDS have been installed, adding over 31 million litres of capacity to the sewerage network that runs underneath the town. The project is the first of its kind to ever be done in the UK and has been designed to help the town’s sewer networks cope better during bad weather by storing rainwater or infiltrating into the ground after a weather event.

To celebrate completing the project, Severn Trent recently held an event to give back some allotment space to the Mansfield Woodhouse community. The company, working in partnership with Mansfield District Council and construction partner CPC Civils, began work on an area of the allotments that had become disused and overgrown, fitting one of their largest SuDS, laying a new access road and cutting back some of the overgrown land to create more plots for the community to use.

The work at Newcastle St allotments has given the site eight new plots, all of which have already been taken up by residents in the local community. Severn Trent has also installed a detention basin, with the capacity to store almost 400m³ of rainwater, equivalent to 1,153 bathtubs.

Members of Newcastle St allotments, Severn Trent and Mansfield District Council were at the handover event. Ady Selby, Assistant Director for Neighbourhoods at Mansfield District Council, said: “The council is working with key partners, and together, we are leading the way to alleviate surface water flooding sustainably, while increasing biodiversity and making our green spaces more useful.

“What’s more, is that eight new allotment plots have been created and filled, and people have already spent a lot of time there getting used to their plots and planting different flowers and vegetables. It’s brought a previously disused and overgrown area back into community use.”

Adam Boucher, Operations Lead for Mansfield Green Recovery, said: “We’re thrilled to have finished this project in Mansfield, which has not only taken a huge amount of capacity away from our sewerage network, but also alleviated flood risk for thousands of people across Mansfield.

“The Newcastle St allotments is just one example over the past three years of how, working with Mansfield District Council, we have come together to provide extra support to the local community.

“While we have finished the build element of this project, you’ll still see Severn Trent workers around as we’ll be maintaining all of our SuDS for years to come.”