BBA accredited sustainable drainage system Glasgow City Council

Owned by Glasgow City Council, the Tollcross International Swimming Centre required extensive refurbishment, plus the introduction of a second 50-metre x six-lane warm-up and training pool to accompany the centres existing 50-metre x 10 lane pool. The development was designed to provide a permanent training and recreational facility for both the local community and elite athletes. The client required a sustainable solution for this project that would also contribute to BREEAM.

After looking at various options Glasgow City Council’s final decision was to use ULTISuDS on the car park. This solution met all requirements including those of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) that the car park run-off should receive 2 levels of treatment before discharging to ground or in extreme events to the local watercourse (based on CIRIA C697 SDS manual).

The installed system allowed the majority of water to escape to ground given that the underlying natural soil is classed as ‘medium dense clayey sand’ with an infiltration rate of around 1.7 x 10-5 m/s. Any run-off not escaping to ground would drain away via a hydrobrake (flow restricted to 1.3 litres per second, equivalent to Greenfield run-off rate) to the local surface water sewer which in turn discharges to the local watercourse.

Using ULTISuDS in the landscaping element helped the client maximise the credits available under BREEAM under ‘Pol 6 – Minimising watercourse pollution’ by providing the 2 levels of treatment prior to discharging to ground or the adjacent water course. Porous construction with natural stone also rated as A or A+ in the Green Guide ‘Mat 2 – Hard landscaping and boundary protection. ULTISuDS is performing well and proving itself capable of withstanding the rigours of Scottish Winters.