SAB Society Wales
SAB Society Wales Conference 2026
On 10th September 2026, SAB Officers from across Wales came together for our first ever SAB Society Wales Conference. For this first event, attendance was restricted to SAB Officers only, but we are exploring options to expand and involve the wider Sustainable Drainage community for future events.
Conference Key Themes
The 2026 SAB Society Wales Conference centred around 3 core themes
The first workshop focussed on a set of common principles that can be applied to the calculation of commuted sums across Wales.
The second workshop looked at the adoption process, overcoming barriers to successful adoption and design and construction considerations for adoptable SuDS.
The third workshop looked specifically at the unique challenges for agricultural developments, with reference to the independent review of the bureaucratic burden on family farms launched by Welsh Government in June 2026.
Commuted Sums Consensus Building Workshop
Convened by Mark Goodger, Treasurer SAB Society Wales
Commuted Sums are currently the only legal mechanism that SABs have to ensure that there are sufficient funds available to pay for future maintenance of Sustainable Drainage (SuDS) features that the SABs, legally, must adopt and ensure are maintained. This is a critical area for SABs to ensure that they get right as, under the Well-being of Future Generations Act, SABs must also ensure that the needs of today are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The Welsh Government Post Implementation Review
As part of Welsh Government's post implementation review of Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act, a survey carried out by ARUP identified that 94% of SABs and 91% of applicants were in favour of a consistent, national approach to the calculation of commuted sums. The purpose of the workshop was to look at where there is already common ground in the approaches used by SABs across Wales and, where there are differences in approach applied by individual SABs, to have an improved and shared understanding of the reasons behind the different approaches.
Workshop Outcomes and Next Steps
The workshop successfully demonstrated several areas of strong consistency between SABs as well as highlighting a few areas where further work is needed to reach an agreed national position.
The outcomes from the workshop are being developed into a Statement of Common Principles and a National Commuted Sum Estimation Tool.
Design and Construction of SuDS for Adoption
Convened by Craig Jones, Vice-Chair SAB Society Wales
The SAB is responsible for adopting sustainable drainage features that serve more than one property and for ensuring their ongoing maintenance in line with those standards.
The formal adoption process is relatively new with only a couple of SABs having gone through the complete process of adopting SuDS. The Welsh Government statutory standards and existing published guidance, such as the CIRIA SuDS Manual provide limited practical guidance on the design and construction of SuDS to support SAB adoption and to facilitate safe, efficient and cost-effective access for inspection, operation, maintenance and end-of-life replacement of SuDS and SuDS components.
The purpose of the workshop was to explore SAB expectations around adoption, identify potential barriers to adoption and how these can be overcome and to learn from the experiences of those SABs who have already been through the adoption process.
Workshop Outcomes and Next Steps
The workshop outcomes are feeding into the development of a SuDS Adoption Guide.
Reducing Bureaucracy on Family Farms in Wales
Convened by Justin Griffiths - Chair SAB Society Wales
Following on from the announcement of an independent review of the bureaucratic burden on family farms by Welsh Government, the final workshop session of the day was a case study led session looking at how the existing Welsh Government standards and guidance for agricultural developments contained within the updated Statutory Guidance is applied across Wales.
Workshop Outcomes and Next Steps
SAB Society Wales are actively engaging with the review panel and will look at what opportunities may exist to provide further guidance for family farms and where this guidance may also help other sectors, such as self-builders.