How a UK homebuilder uses RoSPA’s SuDS reviews to ensure safety

A Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) review is a targeted safety evaluation aimed at ensuring SuDS pose a minimal risk to public safety. The review applies RoSPA’s specialised risk rating tool - created specifically to assess drowning hazards in the UK - to systematically analyse each component of a SuDS scheme. A SuDS review can be carried out at the design stage, construction stage or on completed development.

Jason King is Engineering Manager at Barratt David Wilson Homes North-East, which has around 270 members of staff across its divisional office and site teams, operating across 20 sites at any one time, and is part of UK homebuilding company Barratt Redrow.

We asked Jason why the company undertakes Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) reviews with RoSPA. He said: “SuDS ponds are a key feature across many of our developments. We want them to be used safely by residents, as well as being a key part of the placemaking of our developments and easily maintainable by a management company.  

“Part of our technical policy is that we undertake a safety inspection on all wet attenuation ponds across our developments. We have elected to undertake this at four stages: Design; on formation; on becoming publicly accessible; and finally on handover to the management company.

“One debate we have is around when it’s appropriate for SuDS ponds to be fenced off. This potentially causes a future maintenance issue being passed to the management company and can make it difficult to leave if anyone enters the pond. Our preference is to manage safety through landscaping, ensuring a well planted edge to the pond as well as appropriate gradients and plateaus to allow easy egress if ever needed.

“We chose RoSPA because they are nationally recognised safety experts. Having RoSPA provide feedback on our design ensures we’re designing and building in the safest way for our residents. The subsequent stage inspections reaffirm the design and ensure we’re safe to open to the public.

“Having a SuDS review is a simple process. We instruct the survey and receive the report in a matter of weeks. We then review the feedback and action accordingly.

“It provides peace of mind that we’re designing and building in the right way and providing safe SuDs as key features on our developments. We use the reports to inform our design and landscaping strategy, allowing us to ensure the development is safe and fit for use.

“I would absolutely recommend working with RoSPA. It’s a relationship that we’ve built up over the last few years and will continue to use going forward.”

Find out more about our SuDS services at: https://www.rospa.com/health-and-safety-consultants/suds-report