Southern Water is reviewing its options to how to provide flood protection for Portsmouth after a major part of its plans to help prevent sewer flooding in the city was rejected by Portsmouth City Council.

Southern Water had developed a £20 million ten-point plan to help prevent flooding and submitted a planning application to build a new £10 million pumping station to manage stormwater flows during extreme weather.

The plan was to improve Portsmouth’s overall security and help avoid the sort of floods experienced in September 2000.

During the floods of 2000, the existing pumping station at Eastney was taken out of operation when its six storm engines were submerged under three metres of water.

However, in September 2007, the council refused permission for Southern Water to build a back-up pumping station at Bransbury Park.
The new standby station would have helped prevent a repeat of the flooding, with five new pumps capable of dealing with 9,000 litres of stormwater every second.

The plan was for the underground element of the pumping station to be built beneath the park itself, but with all the above-ground equipment on the same site as the existing station. 

Southern Water underwent an extensive consultation process before submitting the planning application and believed the application was the most suitable.

The company is now reviewing its options on providing flood protection in the city.