Surface Water Drainage

What is storm water?

Storm water is water that drains from hard surfaces at your club such as roofs, terraces and car parks. At some clubs, this water will drain into the storm water drains and sewer system, helping to wash the sewers clean but requiring the water company to treat it before it can be used again.

How does this affect my club?

A recent change in the law means that water companies can now charge for storm water drainage based on the impermeable area draining into the sewer. This might be the combined area of the roof and car park, but not the area of the outfields as these are permeable. This could result in significant increases in surface water drainage charges for cricket clubs (and other sports clubs, churches and community groups).

It is important to note that water companies can only charge for water entering their sewers based on the sealed area draining to those sewers. Therefore it is important to know where your storm water drains to. If you have large sealed areas but they don’t drain to the mains sewer then you are not liable to storm water drainage charges on your water bill and you should speak to your water company.

How can we reduce the effect on our club?

If your storm water drains connect to the sewer then consider constructing a soakaway. A soakaway is a specially constructed back-filled pit in the ground that allows storm water to infiltrate into the soil over time.

The design of the soakaway needs to take into account rainfall for your region, the impermeable area draining to the soakaway and the soil type which the water will infiltrate.

For more information, see our guide on designing and constructing a soakaway below:

Soakaways (220 KB)

An even better way is to use a rainwater harvesting system combined with a soakaway overflow. This collects rainwater from a roof into a tank which is used to store the water so that it can be used for irrigation or even flushing lavatories. If the storage tank fills it can then overflow into a soakaway. This means not only can you reduce your storm water drainage charges but also your water consumption charges.

For more information, see our guide to rainwater harvesting for cricket clubs below:

Rainwater Harvesting (272 KB)