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What this means in practice is that infrastructure planning will no longer be about meeting minimum standards; it will be about building future-proof systems that can stand up to climate change, urban growth and tighter environmental targets. Design life expectations of 100 years or more, reduced carbon impact, and whole-life performance are becoming the benchmarks. This is encouraging for Marshalls as we have been investing in sustainable drainage systems, precast concrete attenuation and lowercarbon manufacturing for years.
3. With climate change intensifying flood risks and extreme rainfall, do you think our current approach to water management is resilient enough or does it need a more fundamental shift? The current approach to water management is not resilient enough- there is an urgent need for a change in mindset around water and the climate. Investing in infrastructure that is fit for the future, as well as managing and protecting it at every stage of the design and construction process, will be essential.
The scale and pace of climate change mean that traditional methods of managing water— largely focused on moving it away as quickly as possible— are no longer sufficient. What is needed is a more fundamental shift towards integrated, sustainable systems that work with the environment rather than against it. That means designing for extreme rainfall as the norm and embedding sustainable drainage and natural flood management principles into every stage of planning and development.
4. How should regulation balance the urgent need for near-term flood protection with the longer-term goal of climate adaptation and resilience? Regulation needs to do both; it needs to address today’ s risks while keeping a clear eye on tomorrow’ s challenges. It should encourage joined-up thinking: every pound spent on near-term protection should also be an investment in long-term climate resilience.
In the near term, communities need confidence that they are protected against flooding, so it is right that investment continues in proven, fast-to-deploy infrastructure. But if regulation focuses only on short-term fixes, we risk locking in solutions that will not stand up to the realities of climate change. The balance comes from embedding longer-term resilience into every near-term intervention. That could mean setting minimum standards for carbon reduction and design life or requiring that temporary solutions are scalable into more permanent systems.
5. How critical is long-term funding and policy certainty for unlocking innovation in drainage and flood resilience solutions? Innovation does not happen overnight, it requires sustained investment in research, design, testing and deployment, making long-term funding and policy critical.
If policy signals are inconsistent or funding is short-term, companies hesitate to commit, and the sector ends up relying
Our water management team is passionate about the positive impact we can have on the built environment, particularly given the urgency and need to transform and support the UK’ s water infrastructure network
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