St Mary’s

Rainscaping, community garden and A13 road drainage around the St Mary’s Nature Reserve in Shoebury

As part of this project we hope to use innovative rainscaping techniques to direct and store water within the highway and green open space areas around the St Mary’s Nature Reserve and behind Asda. A series of accessible boardwalks will be used to allow access throughout the rainscaped areas. Rainwater captured will be stored and – once treated using nature-based solutions – can be used to water the new community garden areas to be installed, or by our parks team to water the many green open spaces in the area.

Latest news

02/07/2025: Detailed design phase

We’re currently in the detailed design stage. We are also doing some investigations to confirm assumptions.

06/10/2025: Camera survey

We performed a CCTV camera survey on 22 September. We surveyed a manhole on the site which showed us that we won’t be able to use it as an outfall for the proposed pond, so we will need to create a new one. We have altered our proposed design and are waiting for approvals. We will then move on to adding more details once the fundamentals are agreed.

Drainage pond in St Mary's Nature Reserve
Drainage pond in St Mary's Nature Reserve

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