After evaluation of the six submissions, Atkins have been awarded the contract and briefing meetings are now progressing. An initial proposal will be prepared for discussion and consultation. Thereafter a final design will be drawn up and the works tendered with a construction start date in March 2006.
Consultations are continuing in parallel to this with early talks taking place with the Council’s Land Services Department (the owners of the park land in which the project will be located) as well as Scottish Enterprise Glasgow who wish to develop the adjacent site for housing. The Council has also given the go ahead for a new Primary School to be located in one of the other adjacent site’s so the pilot scheme will provide important solutions for the regeneration of the area. Along with these consultations, the local community is being appraised at each step through the Council’s Area Planning team.
Meanwhile the Council is progressing with a strategic answer for the City by developing Surface Water Management plans (Glasgow Strategic Drainage Plan) and has set up a dedicated team to identify answers through appropriate spatial planning with the theme of “making space for water”. This INTERREG project is hopefully only one of many differing answers that the Council will identify as it strives to regenerate the City through the sustainable drainage solutions. Through this partnership with Scottish Water, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, Glasgow is seen to be at the forefront of water management with the result that the Government Department in England has published a guideline – “Making Space for Water” – which follows Glasgow’s lead.
As a result of all this activity the academics are queuing up to utilise the vast amounts of data that the partnership is collating and utilising this to research into the development of new software tools for analysis of pluvial, fluvial and sewer flooding. The Universities of Heriot Watt, Newcastle, Abertay, Exeter, Bristol and Reading are making use of this data with the governments research body the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC) granting £5.5m to establish the Flood Risk Management Research Consortium (FRMRC).
Theme Group News
The INTERREG team for TRUST in Glasgow is liasing with their neighbours, Renfrew Council, who are part of the INTERREG URBANWATER partnership. Members of the Glasgow team have accompanied the Renfrew team members to Holland to share experiences and solutions.
