Working with others – Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels catchment

• East Sussex County Council
• Water Management Alliance (Pevensey & Cuckmere)
• Hastings District Council
• Rother District Council
• Wealden District Council
• The Environment Agency
• Natural England
• The Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels Catchment Partnership and member organisations including:
  • The Sussex Wildlife Trust
  • The South East Wildlife Trust
  • The High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
  • The Forestry Commission
  • The Country Landowners Association
• South East Water

Working together to co-create the DWMP is important. Our drainage and wastewater systems are often inter-connected with the systems managed and operated by others and affect the natural environments within the catchment.

A wide range of issues and concerns have been raised and discussed throughout the development of the DWMP for the Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels. These include:

• Significant growth is expected the Hailsham area, with about 5,000 homes planned over next 15 years. Flooding is already an issue so a longer term drainage plan and locations for SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) schemes are needed.
• Although the Eastbourne sewer network has capacity, around 94% of the flow is from roof and road runoff. Meanwhile, flooding is an issue so sustainable land drainage is urgently needed in the catchment. East Sussex County Council has a report on the strategic location of SuDS relating to the Pevensey Levels.
• There are significant lengths of combined sewers across the river basin and these need investigating to understand the potential for separation.
• The sewers overlying the Eastbourne Source Protection Zone (SPZ) potentially need relining to protect groundwater supplies.
• Pollution, nutrients and the storming impacts from CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflows) are likely to be adversely impacting the Pevensey Levels Habitat, the SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) and bathing and shellfish waters.
• High river levels affect the outfalls at Eastbourne and there is seawater infiltration into the underground treatment works affecting the separation of solids, hinders biological activity and affects the pumping station.
• The potential impact of coastal erosion and disruption to services at Eastbourne means a ‘change’ strategy should be considered.
• We are progressing these issues through the development of the DWMP as set out in our investment needs for the Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels. Further, we commit to working with others to co-develop and co-deliver schemes that meet multi-organisational objectives and which benefit the environment, our customers and communities.

We developed and ran a series of activities between 2020 and 2022 as we prepared our DWMP for the Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels. The dates and purpose of the various webinars, workshops, meetings on individual wastewater systems and interim consultation were as follows:

The regionally based webinars presented and discussed issues and information relevant across the whole or our operating region. You can view the presentations used in the webinars on our Who we’re working with page.

The presentations we discussed at the Cuckmere and Pevensey Levels workshops are below:

Workshop 1
Held in September 2020, participants discussed the findings of the risk based catchment screening and proposed additional planning objectives for the DWMP. Workshop slides.

Workshop 2
Held in May 2021, participants:

1. discussed the results from the BRAVA risk assessments and the proposed investment strategy for the wastewater catchments within the River Basin
2. identified the generic options that should be explored to address the identified risks, and
3. discussed which wastewater catchments to progress through the Options Development and Appraisal stage of the DWMP. Workshop slides.

Workshop 3
Held in March 2022, we reviewed and discussed the draft investment programme for the River Basin Catchment. This included the types of investment, priorities and timing for investment needs and the wider opportunities arising from the proposed investment in terms of partnership projects and catchment wide solutions providing multiple benefits. Workshop slides.

You can view the findings from our interim consultation.