Small waterlogged garden

[bigwest]

Not something I have had to tackle before so having read up the relevant pages on the main site I was hoping to get a bit of clarification on how to go about the following:

We have a client who lives in a notoriously waterlogged area, they have a small garden that gets maybe an inch or so of standing water in heavy and not so heavy rain. One of the things they want to do is have a new lawn.

So I've been looking at land drainage and soakaways. I'm aware that if a soakaway is the answer then a test pit will need to be dug as I have a feeling the water table is high and the ground will have some clay in it.

If a soakaway is out of the question is land drainage the best alternative? I can see how this might help but my main problem is I can't see where the land drains could lead to, the house is surrounded by other houses.

Would really appreciate some advice.

[local patios and driveway]

in the past year at my newest property with the same problems ive come to the conclusion that soakaways wont help on clay heavy ground that takes weeks to dry out

[lutonlagerlout]

I would say elevate the garden
I have seen it at the allotmenst where some of the old irish fellas have added that much manure/compost that their plots are 150mm higher than neighbours
neighbours floods theirs stays dry
LLL

[local patios and driveway]

thats good advice,,you could even create a very shallow soakaway on the top of the garden using a 4inch layer of hardcore sandwiched in geotextile with a 5inch covering of top soil.

[bigwest]

That is a good idea I hadn't thought of. I think I will do a test pit for a soakaway and if no joy try and elevate the lawn area as mentioned, get loads of good draining material in there and hopefully that will help.

Thanks for the ideas.