Yard & Car Park Drainage

Standing water in yards and car parks isn't just an inconvenience, it creates slip hazards, disrupts deliveries, damages surfacing, and can lead to water tracking into buildings. On busy commercial sites, poor surface water drainage can quickly become a recurring maintenance cost and a health and safety risk.

ICE Drainage provides yard and car park drainage installation and repairs across London and the Home Counties, supporting commercial property teams, hospitality venues, and facilities management with practical, maintainable solutions.

What we mean by yard and car park drainage

Yard and car park drainage covers the systems that collect and remove surface water from hardstanding areas, including road gullies and yard gullies, channel drains and linear drainage, catch pits and silt traps, surface water pipework and connections, soakaways and attenuation systems where required, and re-grading to improve falls and prevent pooling.

The right solution depends on the size of the area, the direction of the falls, and where the water can safely discharge.

Common problems we see on commercial sites

If your yard or car park drainage isn't performing, it's usually down to one or more of the following: blocked gullies filled with silt, leaves, and debris, silted surface water lines restricting flow, damaged channel drains or collapsed sections, poor falls causing water to sit away from collection points, drainage that's undersized for the catchment area, failed soakaways that no longer infiltrate, or a lack of silt interception leading to repeat blockages.

These issues can cause persistent puddling, flooding during heavy rainfall, ice risk in winter and more slip incidents, disruption to deliveries and loading bays, and premature surfacing damage such as potholes.

When to call a yard and car park drainage contractor

You should consider an inspection or remedial work if you're experiencing pooling water that doesn't clear quickly after rainfall, gullies overflowing or gurgling, channel drains backing up, water tracking towards entrances or plant rooms, repeated reactive call-outs for the same area, or complaints about slippery walkways or access routes.

If the area is critical to operations, such as deliveries, customer parking, or waste collection, it's worth addressing before it becomes a bigger issue.

Our services: clear, repair, upgrade, install

We support commercial yards and car parks with end-to-end drainage work.

Drainage investigations and fault finding

We help identify why water is pooling and what's restricting flow, checking gullies, channels, and catch pits, assessing where silt and debris is entering the system, reviewing falls and surface levels, and checking whether any soakaways or attenuation systems are still performing.

Gully and channel drain cleaning

We clear silt and debris from gullies, clean channel drains and remove build-up, jet connecting pipework where required, and recommend changes to reduce repeat silting.

Repairs and replacements

We repair damaged gullies, frames, and grates, replace broken channel drain runs, resolve outlet restrictions and connection issues, and repair collapsed or damaged surface water pipework.

Upgrades and new installations

Where the existing drainage is inadequate, we can install or upgrade systems to improve performance, such as additional gullies to increase capture, new channel drain runs in high-flow areas, catch pits or silt traps to protect downstream assets, and soakaways or attenuation systems where suitable.

Protecting the system with silt traps and catch pits

One of the biggest causes of repeat issues is silt and debris entering the drainage network. We often recommend adding interception points such as catch pits on long runs, silt traps upstream of soakaways or attenuation systems, and improved access points for maintenance. This reduces blockages, protects your assets, and lowers long-term maintenance costs.

Planned maintenance for high-risk areas

For FM teams and multi-site clients, yards and car parks benefit from planned maintenance. A simple schedule can include routine gully emptying and cleaning, channel drain cleaning, catch pit inspections and emptying, and jetting where required. This helps prevent flooding incidents and keeps operational areas safe.

Minimising disruption on live sites

Yards and car parks are often live areas with constant movement. We can plan work around delivery schedules and loading bay access, customer parking peak times, permit-to-work processes on FM-managed sites, and out-of-hours windows where required.