Plans have been released which reveal a new £12m flood basin to cut the risk of flooding in Salford.

The plans, proposed by the Environment Agency with support from Salford City Council, will create a flood basin on land north of the Castle Irwell Student Village to protect 1400 homes and 500 businesses in Lower Broughton and Lower Kersal.

The scheme will work by storing flood water on the existing Castle Irwell playing fields and public open space. The new basin will work with the existing similar storage area at Littleton Road (Salford Sports Village).

To create enough space to store the water, the 15 hectare (150,000m2) area will be excavated and the material will be used to construct a 3 metre high embankment around the site.

This will minimise the amount of imported material required to create the embankments, reducing the number of additional vehicle movements on the surrounding road network and reducing the cost of the scheme.

The existing pitches will be reinstated with an improved drainage system so that they can be brought back into use more quickly if they are flooded. The pitches currently suffer from flooding approximately once every five to ten years; following the construction this will reduce to approximately once every 25 years.

A new habitat area with improved footpaths for community use will be created in the northern part of the basin, with a small hill (referred to as a knoll in the Planning application) to provide views across the site.

By raising the embankment around the site, the Environment Agency intends to make best use of the capacity of the River Irwell through Salford. Water will flow downstream without flowing into the basin until the river is almost full.

At this point, water will begin to flow over a low point in the embankment and into the storage area. The two flood storage areas together will store the water which would otherwise cause flooding through parts of Lower Broughton and Lower Kersal.

The University of Salford is opening new student accommodation blocks on their main campus at Peel Park for September 2015.

Salford City Council and the University are in talks about the University moving its sports activities from Castle Irwell to the David Lewis playing fields adjacent to the main campus. Salford City Council and the University are committed to consulting with the community about this possible land swap. The swap would see underused playing fields near the campus transferred to the university and the city council take over the sports pitches at Castle Irwell; offering more sports facilities for Salford as a whole.

Flood Risk Manager for the Environment Agency, Mark Garratt, said: “This scheme is a great example of how, by working together, we can bring added benefits to a local community whilst developing a scheme to reduce flood risk. This scheme will protect local homes and businesses, whilst also improving sports facilities for the local area.”

The planning application for the construction work was submitted at the end of last week (10 October). Some preparatory works, including tree removal, which do not require planning permission, are expected to start in January 2015. If the planning application is successful, construction work will start in March 2015 and should be complete by the following winter.

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