Southern Water pays for de-paving in the Isle of Wight to cut spills and floods

Southern Water is paying Isle of Wight residents to switch their impermeable driveways and yards for porous alternatives, under a pilot to reduce storm spills and stop flooding.

Residents of Binstead, near Ryde, have been offered up to £75 per square metre to replace concrete and paved surfaces with gravel or cobblestones. The village has experienced a number of flooding events in recent years and around 20 storm discharges annually, largely due to excess surface water. The ‘de-paving’ pilot is one of several measures Southern Water, Isle of Wight Council and the Environment Agency are taking to tackle the problem.

Six months in, Southern said almost 250 square metres of impermeable surfaces have been removed. It estimated that if 10mm of rain were to fall on that area in one downpour, it would create nearly 2.5 tonnes of surface water, which would have run into its network but will now be absorbed into the ground.

Southern Water plans to use data gathered from the scheme to inform a wider roll-out across the south east, with the aim of replacing around 4,000 non-permeable driveways and more than 1,100 hectares of hard surfaces over the next five years.