The deadline for submitting responses to the South East Strategic Reservoir Option (SESRO) consultation runs to 11:59 PM on August 28, 2024.
The Vale of White Horse District Council has submitted their comprehensive response, which runs to 26 pages. They argue that alternative solutions should be explored. They also raise concerns about the lack of information regarding design, environmental impact, and construction plans. See https://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/planning/council-submits-response-to-thames-water-reservoir-consultation/
Other groups, such as the Group Against Reservoir Development (GARD), have also responded and are encouraging public participation.
The consultation asks for views on various aspects of the project, including:
Infrastructure: railway access, road access, road replacement (Steventon to East Hanney Road), water treatment works, intake/outfall, and emergency discharge.
Process: The process used to develop preferred options.
Master Plan: Design principles and the overall layout.
There is also a final question for ‘any other comments’.
So you can still provide your feedback by filling out an online questionnaire at https://thames-wrmp.co.uk/projects/sesro/.
The next big event will be the Statutory public consultation in 2025. This consultation is presumably not statutory.
Work on some trial embankments should soon be underway. Costain have been given the contract and will build three test embankments. Geologists will study how the local Kimmeridge clay behaves under different conditions to see if it’s suitable for the reservoir’s large embankments.
I hope is is not going to be like other planning applications. Where there is local objections for various reasons, traffic etc, the Government send planning inspectors which pass the application despite local objections. The water is for London and the South East not Oxfordshire. There are many more suitable sites nearer London which would not cause such disruption. Thames Water say that they do not have any money and will have to borrow to finance this. They have said that there will have to be a considerable hike in what consumers will have to pay.
Would Janet list the ‘many more suitable sites nearer London’. Thanks.
How on earth are they going to fill it; get the water from where!!?
They are going to top it up from the river when the latter is high. They seem to have conveniently overlooked the fact that when the river level is high they take the opportunity to release vast quantities of sewage into it. Apparently there were numerous occasions last year when they were unable to top up Farmoor because the sewage levels were too high.
Thames Water loose more water in leaks per day than the reservoir will hold, so why not fix the leaks first.
“Thames Water say that they do not have any money and will have to borrow to finance this. They have said that there will have to be a considerable hike in what consumers will have to pay.”
Any loan will be financed against the commitment of future receipts from its customers. Meanwhile, Thames Water will aquire a massive asset which it will then sell off to the advantage of it’s owners and there will be (in the stye of Private Eye) ‘Trebles all round in the Boardroom’.
Welcome back to Square One.
This is one of the results of privatising the water industry in the late 1980s. Publicly -owned assets which had some democratic oversight have become privately owned monopolies with little democratic oversight and owned by non-British companies. And many people also ended up buying shares in something they had previously owned. Don’t forget the private sector has to make a profit for its shareholders; hence why some services should be publicly owned.
And TW continue to put out pictures of a big lake with lovely picnic areas and walks on the shores, giving the impression that it will be a massive Farmoor. They just happen to omit the fact that it’s to have up to 80 foot high walls made from local clay, that they – and indeed no one – has built such a large structure in this way, that they’ve only just started doing some small scale trials on the feasibility of even using the clay in this way. And they fail to own up to the fact that the Environment Agency has advised DEFRA that their current plans should not be accepted.