The Environment Agency’s head honcho has warned that the UK’s biggest flood risk, surface water, is growing.

Reported in Water Briefing, Sir James Bevan told delegates at the CIWEM Surface Water Management Conference that surface water flooding threatens more people and properties than any other form of flood risk. Over 3 million properties in England are at risk of surface water flooding, even more than the 2.7 million at risk from rivers and the sea.

In response, the Welsh Government is leading the way by making SuDS a mandatory requirement for all new developments. Read more here. A great blog on the CIRIA website talks about the recent official launch of the Greener Grangetown scheme in Cardiff.

Water UK is seeking views on creating a SuDS register. Unbelievably, there is currently no complete and consistent record of SuDS assets. The project will help define:

• a standard approach to representing SuDS on sewer maps;
• a standard SuDS referencing system;
• the information that needs to be collected for SuDS assets;
• a standard data model for information to be collected, stored and shared efficiently

Read more on the susdrain website here.

And finally, the latest National Flood Forum Bulletin focuses on last year’s Boxing Day flooding in Rochdale.