Water Resources Management Plan: Teddington

Ed Davey Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that important intervention; I could not agree with her more. Thames Water has conducted a consultation, but its response to its own consultation, published just a few days ago, makes it abundantly clear that it has not listened to public opinion or taken due regard of the impact on the very precious environment on which it is seeking to build.

[Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on not only securing this debate but how she has conducted her campaign on behalf of her constituents, working with our hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney).

Many of my constituents in Kingston are worried about the scheme. They treasure ecology and water quality, and are really alarmed that Thames Water could think it acceptable to pump highly treated recycled water back into our wonderful Thames. They are also worried about the impact of the construction—the huge number of lorry movements that will come into Kingston during the construction phase. My hon. Friend’s campaign has my full support, and I would be grateful if she added my representations and those of my constituents to her own.

[Munira Wilson]

My right hon. Friend demonstrates, once again, the strength of opinion locally. Not only has Thames Water not listened to residents’ representations but its interaction and communication since the start of the process have been, frankly, woeful.

Just days ago, Thames Water published its revised water resources management plan—supposedly, as I said, in response to its public consultation. As the Minister will know, in the plan the company has drastically improved its usage reduction target to 110 litres per person per day by 2050. That is a welcome step. That reduction in demand means less pressure on new supply options such as the Teddington water recycling scheme. Yet despite public opposition and the concerns of the Environment Agency, Thames Water have kept that in its plans while scrapping more popular schemes that would have far more benefit to our economy and the environment. How can that be the right choice?

The strength of local feeling about the scheme is palpable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) have pointed out—not just from local residents who live by the river, but from the thousands of river users who row, fish, swim or paddle in our part of the Thames. The Minister and Thames Water need only look at the sheer scale of the response to the public consultation. Across the whole of its catchment, Thames Water received 1,700 responses; well over a third of those referenced the Teddington scheme directly. Thames Water has chosen to ignore those, but I implore the Minister to listen.

When justifying this controversial scheme, Thames Water returned to a particular claim again and again: that Teddington is the best value option. Best value for whom? That is the question asked by many of my constituents, who remain unconvinced that answer is, as it should be, best value for our rivers, best value for the environment or best value for Thames Water’s 15 million customers.

The truth is that we have reached a point where Thames Water is running out of time to get our water system into shape and it is dangerously close to missing its drought targets. The company’s own documents refer to a “short-term planning problem” in London and it thinks it has found its quick fix in this water recycling scheme. But it is a sticking plaster. The scheme is necessary only because of decades of neglect and underinvestment by Thames Water. In the 34 years since it was established, it has delivered next to no new major water resources, aside from a multi-million-pound desalination plant that was completely out of action last year during the worst drought in decades—not a fantastic record, as I am sure the Minister will agree. That failure to plan ahead has left the company scrambling for a scheme that it can deliver in 10 years or less and it thinks it can plug the gap with water recycling.

The scheme would cost hundreds of millions of pounds of customers’ money but gain very little in terms of resilience. The proposed scheme would save only one 10th—yes, only one 10th—of the 630 million litres of water that Thames Water loses every day through leaks, as the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) pointed out. Thames Water has failed to take prompt action on those leaks over recent years.

Residents regularly see leaks in their neighbourhoods. Last month, an entire playground in Hampton Wick in my constituency was flooded with drinking water. Thames Water is haemorrhaging not just water, but public trust. That is why residents want the company to focus on the leaks and on reducing demand.

Our stretch of the Thames is often called London’s countryside for its picturesque setting, with lush natural habitats and thriving ecosystems supporting species, from bats and badgers to brown trout. Understandably, local residents are passionate about protecting it. Time and again, we have been told by Thames Water that, with tertiary treatment, the effluent that it pumps into the river at Teddington would be of the same quality as the river water itself, with negligible impact on our vibrant river environment or on swimmers, boaters and other river users’ safety.

If that were really the case, however, Thames Water would be able to transfer that highly treated effluent straight into its reservoirs, rather than into the Thames. The company has been clear that that is not an option, however. The truth is that Thames Water has made claims about the environmental impact of the scheme that it simply cannot back up, because it has not completed a full environmental assessment to say how the scheme will affect our river ecology, and nor has it completed human health impact assessments of how it might affect thousands of river users.

To quote the Environment Agency’s response to the proposal, Thames Water has so far failed to show that the Teddington scheme is “feasible or environmentally acceptable”. That is a pretty low baseline. In reality, treated sewage contains a number of chemicals beyond those that the Government have specific targets for, such as phosphorus. Treated effluent contains a host of compounds and chemicals that we have not been assured would be filtered out, including PFAS—so-called forever chemicals, which do not break down in the environment and are known to cause health complications in humans and wildlife—and pharmaceuticals. We should be working to reduce such chemicals in our rivers and streams, rather than wilfully pumping them in.

On top of that, local residents are understandably alarmed that constructing the scheme may mean tearing up beloved green spaces and areas of conservation interest to drill a new tunnel and to construct shafts. Moormead Park in St Margaret’s is a popular local green space for families, local schools and sports groups, with a busy playground and planning permission having just been granted for a much-needed new community sports pavilion. Ham Lands is a beautiful nature reserve, home to important wildlife habitats, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park pointed out. The list of species that could be disturbed or displaced by construction is very long.

It is worth the Minister noting that none of the construction details was shared during Thames Water’s information event earlier this year. It is not just Thames Water’s sewage discharges that stink; its public engagement with our community does too. Engagement has been beyond woeful. Despite that, the public response to Thames Water’s consultation was fantastic. If Thames Water had put any value on the 1,700 responses it received, we would not need to discuss this today.

The company has chosen to scrap its proposal for a new water transfer from the River Severn to the Thames, which would have allowed it potentially to restore large stretches of the beautiful Cotswold canals. Unlike Teddington, that scheme had huge public backing. The positive response to it in the consultation was overwhelming, with people citing the huge social, environmental and economic benefits of restoring those heritage waterways.

Thames Water has thrown public opinion out with the bathwater, a luxury afforded only to companies that have a monopoly in their industry. The company cites customer research to suggest that the public prefer dumping treated effluent into the Thames to restoring heritage canals. I do not know about you, Sir Christopher, but given the findings of the actual consultation, that seems to be a surprising result.

Before I wrap up, I want to touch briefly on two technical points made by local campaigners. The first is about the Environment Agency and Surrey County Council’s River Thames scheme. Shockingly, at my first meeting with Thames Water representatives back in January, they did not even seem to know that that scheme existed, despite its clear impact on river flows at Teddington. Any proposals for water recycling at Teddington must be compatible with those vital works.

Secondly, residents have questions about capacity at the Queen Mary reservoir in London. They simply want to know what work Thames Water has done to investigate that option. Will the Minister add her voice to their calls to for a more sustainable solution?

A campaign group called Save Ham Lands and River is hosting an event in Ham in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park this Saturday to discuss the scheme and our concerns in more detail. If the Minister truly wants to hear what Thames Water customers think of the plan, there is no better opportunity to speak to local residents and river users. I hope that she will accept the invitation, but if not, my hon. Friend and I would be more than delighted to welcome her, at her earliest convenience, to Teddington and Ham to experience our bustling river community for herself. It will take her only half an hour on the tube from Westminster.

I hope that the Minister will respond to the concerns that I have highlighted. It is disappointing that she has ignored our calls for a meeting for many months. It has taken several letters, a point of order and now this debate to compel her to sit in a room with us to listen to constituents’ concerns.

Residents in Teddington, Twickenham, St Margarets and across the region do not trust Thames Water, and they do not trust regulators and the Government to hold it to account. That is precisely why Liberal Democrats nationally are calling for wholesale reform of the water industry to transform private companies such as Thames Water into public-good corporations, with value for the customer and the environment written into their DNA. It is also why locally we are standing up for residents’ concerns about the plan and calling on the Government to consider viable alternatives to the scheme, which will damage our river environment for little reward in terms of long-term resilience.

We urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to give the Teddington scheme and all Thames Water’s infrastructure plans the full and proper scrutiny they deserve to ensure that they are best value for not only stakeholders, but customers who are paying their bills today and the environment that our children will inherit tomorrow. On scrutinising the proposal, they will find that it is deeply flawed and should be stopped in its tracks now.

To quote the Minister:

“Water is a precious resource.”—[Official Report, 21 February 2023; Vol. 728, c. 133.]

We are asking the Government to show that that is not just a platitude, but at the heart of their policies. I ask the Minister to start by giving us a timeline for when the Secretary of State expects to make her decision, and by answering the various questions I have asked today.

What does she think of Thames Water’s pursuing quick fixes instead of sustainable solutions, such as restoring the Cotswold canals? Does she think that it is acceptable that Thames Water has put forward water recycling without a full environmental impact assessment? What does she think of the risks of constructing the scheme and the fact that Thames Water did not make them clear to the community from the outset? Does she believe that pumping treated effluent into the river is viable, given the current levels of sewage pollution in our waterways? Will she take up the unanswered questions of residents about both the River Thames scheme and the Queen Mary reservoir in her discussions with Thames Water? Finally, can she look local residents and their children in the eye and tell them that the scheme is worth the consequences for our river, our precious local environment and our vibrant community of river user groups?