Last week we got the news that Thames Water has received government approval for its Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP), which outlines its strategy to ensure a sustainable water supply for the Southeast of England over the next 50 years.
The plan includes two major infrastructure projects: the South East Strategic Reservoir Option (SESRO, also known as the Abingdon Reservoir) and the Teddington Direct River Abstraction project. In addition to these infrastructure projects, Thames Water will implement measures to reduce water leakage and reduce customer demand, such as installing smart meters and promoting water conservation.
The next major step for Thames Water is to apply for a Development Consent Order (DCO) – required for the construction of the SESRO.
Local opposition to the project remains strong. The Group Against Reservoir Development (GARD) has vowed to continue fighting the plans until the DCO goes for approval, and may seek a judicial review.
The Vale of White Horse District Council (VWHDC) has expressed disappointment that the Secretary of State for the environment has not taken up their offer of a meeting to address their concerns. Councillor Bethia Thomas, the VWHDC leader, said ‘We remain opposed to these proposals, and this news makes taking a stand against this much more challenging, but we will continue to do what is within our limited power.’
I’m left near speechless by the ‘Government’s’ trust in this hapless, mendacious and greedy company. This decision just makes trouble for the future. ‘It’s a good time to be old’ is becoming my catch-phrase.
This is what happens folks. Despite local opposition the Government pushes plans through anyway. It happened with a housing development in Abingdon. A planning inspector was sent from London to push the project through despite local objections. The Secretary of State for the Environment who approved the plan has not even bothered to visit the area.
Given the state of the world and Russia etc mapping out all the subsea cables for wind turbines etc, a great volume of water stored above ground and ready to flood many square miles is an nice target to cause disruption. I’m not clear this has been considered?
Add to that the fact they have not even tested their embankment technology to see if what they are proposing will safely hold that volume of water in. They plan to do tests with a 3 metre high embankment, but that won’t compare to something 25 metres in height. Sure, there’s some Kimmeridge clay in the area, but they don’t even know the full extent of that, or whether that’s sufficient. There’s a lot of sand and gravel around the Abingdon area too – and that’s definitely not useful for sticking a huge volume of water on top.
It’s all so depressing, it looks like Abingdon residents are going to be the guinea pigs on whether putting in such a massive reservoir in an area that already floods is actually safe or not. Orchestrated by a water company – I might add – that is already known for its lack of transparency and trustworthiness, plus huge greed and patent inability to manage its finances. It’s got disaster written all over it.
This massive reservoir will easily take over a decade to build, costs will massively balloon in that time, just as they have with projects like HS2, and then we’ll be left with a giant ugly mess of unfinished embankments, environmental destruction, years of construction noise and pollution and washoff next to where we live – and absolutely NOTHING to show for it all.
Don’t get me wrong, some kind of reservoir would be a good thing, but the size of it has got larger and larger over the decades and is now far too big, and therefore unsafe, and financially unviable. Can’t we just have something smaller that can be built in five years? Can’t there be a few reservoirs in the South East rather than one massive one – which as Chris above says is a massive Russian target for sabotage?