Thames Water’s planned mega-reservoir is mistake

A MEGA-reservoir proposed by Thames Water is coming in for criticism from local residents and environmental groups.

The 150 billion litre reservoir is earmarked for an area of low-lying ground near Abingdon between the villages of East Hanney, Steventon, Didcot and East Marcham.

It would be 25m high and two miles across, which is 50 per cent larger than the proposal the company consulted on earlier this year.

It would also be 50 per cent larger than the planned reservoir that was rejected at public inquiry in 2010.

Now known as the South East Strategic Reservoir Option, building work would begin in 2028 and would take 10 years.

But there are questions over the suitability of this proposal with Thames Water’s appalling history of managing sewage pollution — at least 72 billion litres of sewage have been dumped in the River Thames since 2020 (roughly equivalent to 29,000 Olympic swimming pools) — and its lack of financial stability and mounting debts.

This reservoir would boost the company’s balance sheet.

With this week’s news that Thames Water could run out of money by April, will the Secretary of State see the application as a way of bailing out the company or a plan that is simply not viable?

Sadly, with current constant softening of environmental policies, the first option seems most likely.

We do not have water security in this country and there is a finite amount of water left on this earth and it is running out fast.

Public water resources consist of reservoirs, aquifers and rivers.

In recent months, we’ve been given a glimpse into the future with Guildford being left with no water for well over a week due to problems with a water treatment works run by Thames Water.

Many areas will soon be rationed all year round.

This shared resource is in fact not shared equally, with the wealthy using over 50 per cent of the available water, leaving much of the country to use the rest. The effects of climate change and the social and economic impact of water shortages are very worrying but something that many people aren’t yet aware of.

Water is vital for all life and is being controlled in the Thames Valley by a private company. Unsustainable abstraction leads to reduced flow in our rivers and in the case of the Thames’s tributaries, the precious chalk streams that are the arteries of our river’s existence. It is a death sentence.

There are just over 200 chalk streams in the world, 90 per cent of which are in this area and all are in poor health due to pollution.

This has a hugely damaging effect on our wildlife, river users and biodiversity as a whole.

So you may think that a mega-reservoir is a great idea, a problem solved, but you’d be mistaken.

The water extracted from the River Thames to fill this gigantic hole would not be used for the residents of Oxfordshire but for London and the water-stressed South-East. It would result in destruction of habitats and would not serve local people who gain to lose the most.

Thames Water, Oxfordshire’s only water provider, which serves
15 million customers (one in four people in Britain), leaks more than 600 million litres of drinking water per day and the aquifers that feed the Thames are being bled dry after three decades of privatisation.

Thames Water’s largest shareholder is a vast Canadian pension fund while others include China’s sovereign wealth fund and Abu Dhabi’s Infinity Investments.

This reservoir would take a decade to complete and cost in excess of £1billion, which should be spent on fixing existing pipework and installing carbon filter cleaning systems on all sewage treatment works.

The company’s failure to address leakage and deliver sustainable prevention solutions is well publicised, as are the illegal “dry” spills of sewage into the river, including one on the hottest day of last year.

Repairing crumbling, leaking pipes, harvesting rainwater and installing water management systems properly in homes and businesses (and not deploying the sticking plaster approach taken for the last 30 years) would totally negate the need for the reservoir.

You may think that there would be benefits for the local area, such as employment, but this is limited as construction requires specialist contractors, the majority of whom would have to come from further afield and even abroad.

Dr Pete Sudbury, deputy leader of Oxfordshire County Council and cabinet member with responsibility for climate change/the environment, says: “The council has always opposed this destructive development. In an era of rapid climate change, we need to quickly increase resilience to extreme drought, so a reservoir that won't deliver a drop of water until 2040 simply doesn’t cut it.

“The climate-resilient solution to London’s water shortage is large-scale water recycling in London as soon as possible. The rest of the catchment is ill-served by delaying the ability to transfer water from the Severn catchment, including recycling from Minworth treatment works and from North Wales, where Vyrnwy reservoir already exists.

“‘Are you feeling lucky?’ is a very poor foundation for public policy, especially in an era of increasingly violent and unpredictable climatic extremes.”

The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England has been challenging Thames Water’s case for this mega-reservoir for the last 20 years.

Richard Harding, chairman, CPRE Oxfordshire, says: “While securing sustainable future for water in our region is critical and this proposal would seem like a simple solution, it would have massive environmental and carbon costs. We need more flexible solutions, offering longer-term resilience, while protecting our countryside and all who live and use it.”

Ash Smith, of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution, says: “Thames Water has been relying on leaking water from dodgy pipework for years.

“It is cheaper to process it or simply take it from over-abstracted aquifers than to fix the problems underground so that is the cynical route it takes every time, whether in supply or sewage treatment. Profit is king and everything else is collateral damage.

The regulators are supposed to deal with the corrupted system but they became part of it long ago and are little more than facilitators and spectators.”

Derek Stork, of the Group Against Reservoir Development, says: “Thames Water’s decision to ignore all the views of Oxfordshire stakeholders and ‘double down’ on its Abingdon reservoir proposal is bad news for all surrounding villages but also for Thames Water’s bill-payers.

“Customers would face a 50-year bill of more than £8 billion if the reservoir went ahead.

“The latest proposal brings the reservoir boundary right up to the back gardens of village residents. It puts the reservoir firmly back on top of present flood relief zones and would increase the noise pollution and disruption experienced in the construction phase.

“In the event of a dam breach, the amount of flooding and the potential loss of life in local villages is also greatly increased.

“The essential fact is that this reservoir, situated in a water-stressed area, brings no new water into the Thames Valley and would not be required if Thames Water just fixed its appalling water leakage record. Every day it leaks more than twice the amount of water which would be supplied by the reservoir.”

Parties in favour of the reservoir say that it could be used for recreational purposes, such as swimming and paddle-boarding, and that it would increase wildlife in the area.

The latter is true but it would be to the detriment of the Thames, which is already in a poor state and would have less water and less flow, meaning when spills took place it would have a higher concentration of sewage, killing off any remaining species that call the river their home.

Do we want to line the pockets of Thames Water further, when the company has a debt of more than £14billion?

• Laura Reineke is communications and events manager for CPRE Oxfordshire and a member of the Henley Mermaids.

Nevil Muncaster, strategic partnerships director at Thames Water, provided the following statement:

I am pleased that we agree that we need to be concerned about our water security and the urgency to put in place a plan to protect this precious resource.

Firstly, I’d like to explain why people across the South-East need a new reservoir. The area has been classified by the Government as water-stressed. Put simply, this means there are real concerns that the taps will run dry if we do not act now to put in preventative solutions to ensure water security in the future.

We are facing two challenges: population growth and impact of climate change. We’re already experiencing the impacts of climate change with hotter and drier summers. Just last year, we experienced the warmest year on record, with temperatures soaring to 40C for the first time.

Then there’s population growth, which adds additional pressure to our water supply.

More than 19 million people currently live in the south and east of England and this is forecast to grow by four million, requiring an extra one billion litres of water per day over the next 15 years. We are committed to reducing the impact on the environment of which we are all custodians. We need to protect vulnerable rivers and chalk streams by reducing the amount of water abstracted from groundwater and the reservoir will help us do just that.

Fixing leaks and reducing customer demand makes up 80 per cent of our plan and we have ambitious targets to halve leakage by 2050.

We’re already working towards this, fixing more 1,000 leaks a week — that’s one every 10 minutes.

We all have a role to play in reducing our daily water use. That’s why we’ve installed one million smart meters across our region, helping our customers to use water wisely and to spot leaks at home.

However, this alone won’t be enough to meet growing demand for water. We need to adopt a multi-option approach, including building new infrastructure.

Our revised draft water resources management plan includes two new projects, including the reservoir, and a direct river abstraction project in West London. Both are designed to ensure we are resilient to drought and that we can ensure a safe and reliable water supply for our customers.

I’d like to assure you that we consulted widely on the reservoir, which is part of our 25-year plan that we submitted to the Environment Secretary at the end of August.

The consultation informed our decision to opt for a larger reservoir, which would not only supply people across Oxfordshire but would ensure water security for 17 million customers across the South-East, including customers of Southern Water and Affinity Water.

Our vision is to create a place that is much more than somewhere to just store water and would have a lasting legacy.

There are many opportunities that the reservoir would bring to the local area, including huge social, economic and environmental benefits.

Once built, it would offer a place where people could walk, cycle and enjoy nature, offering recreation opportunities such as fishing and sailing, and could include a visitor centre and café.

All these things we want to develop with the local community. We’re also proposing wetlands along with the reservoir, which would capture carbon once established and could potentially improve flood risk management in the Abingdon area.

The economic benefits include the creation of around 700 jobs during construction, including apprenticeships for young people, boosting spend in the local area, and jobs on site once it is completed.

We’ve continued to engage with our customers, sharing information with and speaking to hundreds of people. Our doors are always open and we will continue to work with our customers, communities and stakeholders to protect our future water resources and the environment.”

For more information about our draft water resources management plan, visit https://thames-wrmp.co.uk