Vasse Diversion Drain Upgrade

Water Corporation is planning to upgrade the Vasse Diversion Drain to increase flood protection in Busselton. Floods have continued to affect the Busselton community since the drain was built in the 1920’s, and although we have been making smaller modifications to the Busselton drainage system to mitigate flooding, these options have now run out.

The Vasse Diversion Drain starts just North of the Busselton Golf Course (refer to map under Document Library) and extends for around 6.3 km north to the ocean at Geographe Bay. It diverts water from the Vasse & Sabina rivers to prevent them overflowing and flooding Busselton.

In November 2000, State Cabinet accepted a proposal from the Busselton Flood Management Steering Committee to ensure the Busselton community be protected from 1 in 100 year rainfall events. This plan included the construction of large compensating basins and reconstructing the banks of the Vasse Diversion Drain.

Since then, we have been working towards this goal, having completed the construction of three compensating basins and reviews of local drainage needs. We have now determined the essential next step is to increase the capacity of the Vasse Diversion Drain while reconstructing the levee banks and building an overflow structure where the drain meets the Vasse River.

Have your say

In December 2019, we set up pop-up project information booths. We spoke to over 100 residents to better understand how people use the drain and any concerns they had about construction or eventual changes to the drain, before finalising our design and construction plan.

We listened to this community feedback and have developed a plan with solutions and strategies. This plan can be found in the Document Library. We also shared this plan at our our pop-up project information booths in February 2020 and continued our discussions with the community to refine it and create more opportunities to work with local groups and experts.

In September 2020, we again invited the community along to our project information booths, and provided an update on our environmental management plans and the outcomes of our environmental approvals.

Over the course of this consultation, we had face to face conversations with over 15 local groups and more than 200 community members to help inform how the project will be delivered.

Please take a look through the information on this page and use the tabs below to fill out our survey or ask us a question using the Q&A tool and we'll be sure to get back to you.