Southern Water is teaming up with Kent County Council and Dover District Council to slow the flow of rainwater into our sewers – and cut storm overflows in Deal.
Improvements in the town form part of a wider £2bn investment in Southern Water’s pipes and sewage infrastructure to help to reduce flooding incidents and will contribute toward our targets of significantly reducing storm overflows by 2030.
The town’s pathfinder project aims to install dozens of state-of-the-art smart water butts at homes in Claremont Road, Grange Road, Cowper Road, and The Grove. Nearly 50 have been installed so far.
The smart butts are solar powered and have technology that enables them to drain water automatically in preparation for upcoming rainfall – allowing volumes of surface water run-off to be more controlled.
Two further milestones for the project have also been reached, with Kent County Council completing work to increase the size of highways gullies in Albert Road, to help rainwater run-off.
The first person to take a look at the smart butts was Co-chair of the Deal Water Action Taskforce (Deal-WAT), Dover and Deal MP, Natalie Elphicke.