Well planned and maintained water features are an asset to our towns and cities.  You only have to watch how they become a magnet for people and how they enrich their lives.  They create attractive places for people to live and work and they create important environments that enrich local wildlife.  Yet for too long our approach to managing the rainfall that falls on, or passes through, our neighbourhood has been to collect this valuable resource as quickly as possible and dispose of it out of site in underground pipes and culverts.

If we are to be truly sustainable and deliver ecosystems that deliver the maximum benefit we must  start to consider water in our environment as a valuable asset.  Each time we develop or redevelop sites we must look at the opportunities that rainfall and surface water could provide rather than judging it as a problem to be removed.  The opportunities to incorporate water within planning are endless and the following solutions are the main types you should be considering to deliver truly sustainable drainage.