Green roofs and ‘rain gardens’ could reduce flood damage bills

NEW homes should be built with “rain gardens” to prevent flooding, the Wildlife Trusts has said.

The organisation believes the small depressions that can accommodate rainwater run-off, as well as permeable driveways and connected waterways, could reduce the likelihood of flood damage for millions of householders.

Responding to the Government’s pledge to build at least 300,000 homes a year, the trusts also called for wild flower verges and wildlife-friendly green roofs in new developments.

The trusts said the focus on numbers of new homes – 1.5 million over five years – should be matched by a “visionary” approach on where and how to build them. Government house-building targets mean around 36 square miles will be given over to new housing developments annually, an area larger than Brighton and Hove.

The organisation wants to see developments located in areas already served by infrastructure, to avoid destroying wild areas and designed to protect existing woods, wetlands, hedgerows and meadows, while creating new areas and corridors for wildlife.

It said this did not necessarily entail prioritising urban brownfield sites over greenfield land, as farmland sites could provide an opportunity to restore land that had become inhospitable to wildlife, while some brownfield sites were nature-rich.

Rachel Hackett, living landscapes development manager for the Wildlife Trusts, said: “A huge challenge lies ahead – we need thousands of new homes and we need to restore the natural world.” She said natural habitats had been lost on an “unprecedented scale” but with good design, the costs would be a “tiny proportion” of the overall costs of development.