Sewer adoption

For large or complex sites, you may need a pre-design assessment for your plans before submitting your sewer adoption application. Please read our wastewater pre-design strategic assessment guide before completing the pre-design application form.  

Fill in our online form via the GetConnected portal and submit your design along with the application fee. We’ll review your application within five days. 

Our engineers will complete a technical assessment within 28 days. Once you've received our approval, you can request an early start meeting. We'll arrange this within seven days, and once the inspection is completed, construction can begin. 

You'll need to enter into an adoption agreement and pay a fee so we can formally adopt the sewers. We understand work may need to begin before the agreement has been signed by everyone involved. In this case, you can complete an early start request to avoid delays. 

If you haven’t requested an early start meeting, you should now request a pre-start meeting with one of our wastewater assistant adoption managers. We'll be in touch within 14 days, and your construction can start once the inspection is complete. 

After you begin construction, we'll carry out inspections to make sure the sewer complies with the adoption agreement. We’ll then carry out a sewer adoption maintenance inspection once the work is complete. We'll provide you with a provisional certificate to enter into a 12-month maintenance period. 

Three months before the end of your maintenance period, you’ll need to request a final inspection. At this point, we will ask for As-Built drawings in both DWG & PDF formats, together with a completed As-Built Data sheet (available below). Once approved, we’ll issue a certificate of completion, and the legal vesting of the sewers will follow. Once we have all the documents needed, your security bond will be released, if applicable.