Aco channel at highway boundary on drive.

[chappers]

I've been sort of roped into helping a friend who is setting up a pattern imprinted concrete business. My main role is helping him with the ground works and set-up, prior to the concreting. he has help and training for this with the leaders in this field and the guy who does the training has been in the business for over 20 years.
We were talking about the positioning of drainage channel and this guy says that to comply with planning regs, that there needs to be drainage channel at the threshold with the highway.
Does anyone know if this is true.
I can't find anything that says this, only that if done under PD that run-off mustn't discharge onto the highway. Also it makes no sense to place acos here as the falls are parallel to and away from the footpath.

Cheers
Gareth

 

[Ian H]

I've dug up many pattern imprinted driveways and only evenr seen ACO and slot drains in front of porches and garage doors.

Your mate should contact insurance companies, they pay well for patching up after drain repairs.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

If you wish to comply with planning, not to mention avoiding some pedestrian slipping over on ice formed by a new hardstanding sloping towards a highway you may wish to brush up on your knowledge of planning legislation.

 

[^woody^]

That guy does not know about his job!

The requirement is that no rainwater run-off should enter the public drainage system. That is it.

In context, this means that you must prevent run off from your drive onto the highway, where it then will go into the public drains. You must also prevent it entering the drains on your property.

So whether an ACCO channel is used or not, or where it goes does not matter as long as it catches surface run off and sends it into the ground, and not into drains. Obviously, the position of any such drain depends entity on the fall of the drive.

 

[chappers]

Could you elucidate on that please Freddie, I have spent several hours this afternoon reading up on this and am pretty confident I have a handle on the planning rules surrounding this, and what I have read pretty much confirms what I already knew, I am also pretty au fait with the premise of SUDS too.
I fully understand the necessity to provide drainage channel at that point if the driveway was sloping towards the highway.
The set-up in question, however doesn't fall to the highway, and I have no problem with setting up suitable compliant drainage to drain the driveway, yet this guy is saying that to comply with planning there needs to be aco at the boundary with the highway regardless, yet I have found nothing that expressly states this.
My sisters drive way for example slopes steeply away from the highway so common sense would make it pointless, fitting drainage channel at the highway boundary

 

[r896neo]

His insistance on acos at the threshold is classic nonsense people pick up on these type of training courses. It is easier to tell the attendees to just do something everytime than explain exceptions and common sense. Of course an aco is redundant if the paving falls away from the road.

Its as woody puts it. You are not allowed to discharge the water to the public highway or shared drains on the property. The water must go to a soakaway.

I have yet to come across it ever being enforced though and acos discharging into a bucket sized 'soakaway' of gravel is the norm.

 

[Ian H]

Or bodged into and existing rain water gully.

 

[chappers]

Thanks for the replies guys I now have this resolved, there had been a slight mis-communication.
He didn't actually say that it was mandatory for there to be an aco at the boundary, but the degree and direction of the falls hadn't been communicated to him properly and he was worried that there could be some run-off to the highway
There will be drainage to a set of adequately sized attenuation cells, as I said I had no problems with setting that up.

 

[^woody^]

There will be drainage to a set of adequately sized attenuation cells

That will be wrong then.

The water needs to soak into the ground, not be collected and then sent to the sewer network.

 

[chappers]

it will be they are open framed and will be wrapped in terram, I am fully aware of the regs and have built more soakaways then I care to remember.

 

[Ian H]

The aqua cell ones?

Do you have to calculate the size in relation to the porosity of the ground or can you just put 2 or 3 in?

 

[^woody^]

I see. You won't be using attenuation cells then, as it's a soakaway.

 

[chappers]

The aqua cell ones?

Do you have to calculate the size in relation to the porosity of the ground or can you just put 2 or 3 in?

no just the surface area, they are surrounded by porous in fill.

For Woody have a look here and here

 

[Doggit]

In context, this means that you must prevent run off from your drive onto the highway, where it then will go into the public drains. You must also prevent it entering the drains on your property

Now that's interesting Woody, I've always been led to believe by my local planning office that you couldn't let the water run off to the highway, but it was okay to divert it into the houses drain system. Having seen the logic of your comments, are they interpreting the regs loosely and very simpliticly, or - as I've seen with them - just turning a blind eye to the problem.

 

[r896neo]

The first best option is for a soakaway. Next best is a local watercourse, the last resort is into a combined foul and storm system. Indeed some councils will flat out ban taking surface water into a combined system.

Some councils will know from dealing with it regularly that some areas will just not be suitable for a soakaway and so are less likely to push for one.

Like all areas of authority some are pragmatic so are maddeningly inflexible.