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Surface Water Management Programme

We’re working in one of the most densely populated and built-up regions in the UK, which places a lot of pressure on drainage. Without action, population growth, urban creep and climate change would increase the likelihood of sewer flooding and pollution.

We’ve historically focussed on engineering solutions, but we’re shifting to sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) which replicate the drainage processes provided by the natural environment.

This approach can help to: 

  • manage the quantity or rate of runoff of surface water (and so improve flooding resilience, as well as reducing the need for overflows)
  • improve the quality of surface water run-off (and so reduce the risk of pollution)
  • improve the amenity of public spaces as well as wider community benefits
  • help improve biodiversity and the customers’ experience of their local environment
SuDS detention basins

Call for projects

We’re now inviting project partners to apply for funding of surface water management projects. The Surface Water Management Programme (SWMP) funds can cover design and construction costs of projects that disconnect or attenuate surface water flows from Thames Water sewers. Our sewers include surface water, combined and foul sewers. 

Thank you to everyone who applied to our first Call for Projects, which closed in August 2021. We received fantastic applications and have allocated over £1.7m to fund 20 surface water management projects.

The deadline for applications to the next Call for Projects will close on Monday 25 April. We’re planning to allocate up to £1.5m in this second round. Please contact us if you wish to have an early discussion about your proposed scheme – we look forward to hearing from you.

How to apply

Please complete our online funding application form. We've created some funding application guidance to support you.

The deadline for submitting funding applications is Monday 25 April.

We’ll provide feedback to applicants by the end of June 2022 at the latest.

If you’re interested in working with us, but your project timescales don’t fit with the specific parameters of this call for projects, please email us.

Online events

We ran a series of online events in February - April 2022 alongside our call for projects - you can review all of the slides below. You can also view the SWMP call for projects launch meeting slides.

Project examples

We heard from a variety of organisations implementing a range of different types of SuDS features: