St Marys Drainage Strategy

The St Mary’s area in northwest Dundee has a history of sewer and surface flooding, which dates back to the 1950s when the Local Authority of the day first developed the area for social housing.

The aim of the Strategy is to: 

  • Reduce the current flood risk in the St Mary’s Catchment  
  • Improve St Mary’s resilience to climate change (reduce the future flood risk) 
  • Provide multiple benefits to the community and environment  
  • Enable future development in the catchment by recovering sewer capacity 

Below shows the extent of the catchment which the Strategy covers. 

St. marys Drainage Strategy area

The Strategy provides an exciting opportunity to work in Partnership with others and showcase what can be achieved by retrofitting BGI into an existing landscape, alongside reducing the flood risk and enabling future development. It provides an ideal opportunity to create imaginative, multifunctional, multi-beneficial, and nature-based solutions that improve drainage, recreation, biodiversity, nature, active travel, community identity, and health and well-being. The project is highly relevant to many of the critical challenges of our times, particularly climate change and biodiversity reductions. It is an important project which could become a benchmark for future schemes.

A feasibility study and concept design for the initial phase of the St Leonard Park sustainable drainage project was finalised in June 2022 and is accessible for viewing here.

The Partnership is currently working on phase 1 of the concept design for the scheme’s drainage and active travel elements. We are currently engaging with the community across the Strathmartine Ward to ensure the project delivers on connecting communities. We are working towards detailed design and hope to start on site in 2027.