YORKSHIRE & HUMBER DRAINAGE BOARD - DEWATERING

Project Name: Yorkshire & Humber Drainage Board
Project Type: Emergency Pumping and Flood Relief
Location: Yorkshire and surrounding areas

The Yorkshire & Humber Consortium of Drainage Boards is made up of eight individual Drainage Boards and covers parts of Yorkshire which are at most risk to flooding from multiple sources.

During the flooding event of winter 2019 many pumps were needed across the consortium area, the hiring of pumps was extremely difficult with the Environment Agency and Fire & Rescue Authorities using national flood defence assets to reduce the risk of flooding to properties businesses, agribusiness, and critical infrastructure.

Pumps were extremely hard to obtain for hire which led the Drainage Boards at the mercy of the weather and any pumps that could be acquired locally.

This was very closely followed by a further incident in spring 2020, with national assets again being brought in to reduce the flooding within our local areas, and The Boards struggling to deal with localised incidents within our catchments.

In winter 2021 we were again involved in multiple flooding incidents working both individually and as a part of a multi-agency effort with the Environment Agency and Local Authorities. Our pumps were deployed to incident sites and following the success of this, the Boards agreed to purchase a further three pumps bringing our total to five SPP Autoprime units.

The pumps have primarily been used for emergency flood relief but also been used for tasks such as over-pumping during watercourse remedial works, as cover when static pumps suffer from failure, and Tidal clough clearance.

The emergency trailer aspect of the setup is invaluable with each pump being a self-contained unit capable of rapid deployment wherever needed.

The pump whilst being securely fastened to the trailer, if needed can quickly be detached and lifted from the trailer using an excavator or telehandler and positioned where it is required to be most effective.

This also adds an extra security element to deployment in remote areas, where a fixed trailer unit would be more prone to potential theft.

The pumps have become an asset to our communities, reducing the risk of flooding across the area.

Following the flooding event of 2023 which affected many properties, businesses and agribusiness across all areas covered by Internal Drainage Boards, the Government made funds available to IDB’s to repair damaged assets, but also to strengthen resilience for future incidents.

The consortium successfully put in bids for 10 more pumps, some to be statically positioned at strategic sites, but also to ensure that each of the Boards have access to their own mobile pump asset as a localised resilience measure to deploy as and when required to reduce the risk of flooding to properties, farmland, and critical Infrastructure.

Following these incidents, funds were made available to initially purchase 2 pumps, so the consortium had some control over some incident deployment.

We had several requirements for the pumps including:

Run time on a tank of diesel to be at least 24 hours.

Self-priming capability

Ability to run dry for a period without causing damage to the pump.

Site security and manoeuvrability

Ability to be self-contained.

Minimum of 500m3h pumping capacity at low head

The SPP Autoprime QYV200 with Emergency trailer fulfilled all these requirements. SPP Pumps supplied:

• QYV200 Emergency 3.5T Trailers – 200mm (8”) Dewatering self-priming pumps supplied on 3.5T trailers with supporting pipework and work lights

From York & Humber Drainage Board…….

“We have worked closely with SPP in the last few years to refine our requirements for the emergency trailer which we believe is suitable for multiple applications and were happy to continue our relationship with SPP for our additional pump assets”.