South East Strategic Reservoir Option

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

I will call Layla Moran to move the motion, and I will then call the Minister to respond. As is the convention for a 30-minute debate, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the proposed South East Strategic Reservoir Option.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am very grateful to be able to bring back to the House the issue of what is actually called the Abingdon reservoir, in common parlance. At the outset, I thank all the local campaigners who have been fighting alongside me on this issue, including Derek Stork and all the members of the Group Against Reservoir Development, Councillors Sally Povolotsky and Richard Webber, and local campaigner Richard Benwell. I also thank Thames Water and Sarah Bentley, whose team have engaged with my office on this issue on a number of occasions.

The last time I was here in Westminster Hall to speak about this issue was in December 2018, in a debate called by the former Member for Wantage, the now Lord Vaizey. Three and a half years later, here we are again. In fact, many campaigners are telling me that the campaign already feels like groundhog day, because the proposed Abingdon reservoir has been looming on the horizon for the people of South Oxfordshire for the best part of 25 years. In 2010, community campaigners were successful, as the Planning Inspectorate determined that there was “no immediate need” for a reservoir of this scale. In 2018, following the Westminster Hall debate, we defeated the monstrous project again. This debate is especially timely, because the public consultation on the regional plan put together by Water Resources South East closed on Monday. It is fair to say that the proposal has mobilised the community, with one constituent writing to me to say that

“these plans are frankly scary and have prompted me to try and take some action.”

It is important to make it clear that I fully accept that continuing to meet rising water demand is of utmost importance. Those in the industry refer to the point at which demand outweighs supply as “the jaws of death”, and I have no desire to find out what that means. They are warning, however, that we are on this path and that something needs to happen—on that, let us agree. Climate change means there is a reduction in water supply, and population growth will continue to increase demand. There is clearly a gap in supply and a growing need for drought resilience. I therefore understand the drive to plan for the worst but hope for the best.

Water Resources South East, which is an alliance of six water companies in the south-east of England, has a proposal to fill the gap: the Abingdon reservoir. For those who may be less familiar with the project, let me paint a picture. The Abingdon reservoir is a fully bunded—that means walled—raw water storage reservoir in the upper Thames catchment area. It is near the villages of Drayton, Steventon and The Hanneys, but it also affects Garford, Frilford and Marcham. During periods of high flow, water would be taken out of the Thames and pumped into the reservoir. When flow in the Thames is low and the water is required in London and the rest of the south-east, water would be released to the Thames in order to be taken out further downstream.

It sounds good, but it is worth noting that this not just a reservoir. It is a mega-reservoir. It would be the largest walled reservoir in the UK and hold 150 megatonnes of water, with a footprint of seven square kilometres—that is ever so slightly smaller than Abingdon itself. The entire city of Swindon—by which I mean every person, car and house—weighs five times less than the water that would be contained in the reservoir. Its concrete walls would be between 15 and 25 metres high—equivalent to three double-decker buses stacked on top of one another—and all of this would be built on a floodplain in the River Thames, in an area that was heavily affected by flooding in 2007.

It is understandable that my constituents are concerned, first, about the disruption that will be caused by eight to 10 years of construction and, secondly, about all the local infrastructure that will be put under water. Local people may draw a comparison between this reservoir and the Farmoor reservoir. The Farmoor reservoir’s walls are only 1 metre to 2 metres high and it is about a third of the size. People can sail on Farmoor; we certainly will not be able to sail on this one, and nor is it going to be a nature reserve. This reservoir will cost the taxpayer billions of pounds and will have a huge environmental impact. In my view and that of the campaigners, it is imperative that Water Resources South East does due diligence and reassures the public, at this early stage, that the proposal is absolutely necessary. That reassurance is wholly lacking at the moment.

My constituents are challenging some key assumptions. A cornerstone of the argument for the reservoir is population growth. WRSE predicts a population increase of 4 million by 2060. The Office for National Statistics puts the figure at 1.13 million, less than a third of that prediction. Water companies have pointed to growth in the Oxford to Cambridge corridor as a factor in their need to create extra resources, but the Oxford-Cambridge Arc appears to have been scrapped. Which number is it? Overestimating population growth has a huge impact on planning for future water demand. The WRSE estimate overstates the required water output by 150 million litres a day.

The case for an infrastructure project of this size should have no holes, but one appears to be leaking already, and it is not the only issue. If the project were to go ahead, the impact on the environment would be monumental. The submission to the Regulators Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development—RAPID—claims that the reservoir would have a moderate adverse environmental impact but that the plan would increase biodiversity by 10%. How can the report make such claims, when the initial environmental impact assessment scoping studies will not be carried out until gate three? We have just passed gate one. That will be in spring 2023, with construction due to begin in 2025.

An initial background environmental impact assessment was conducted by Thames Water. When it was released—under pressure—it was almost entirely redacted. That is simply not good enough. Campaign groups have raised concerns that there will be a total loss of habitat and biodiversity. The size and depth of the reservoir will be unsuitable for nesting waterfowl, and it is highly unlikely that species pushed out during construction will ever return. The project will also have the largest construction carbon footprint of any strategic water project, which we know from Thames Water’s own figures. Thames Water has refused to give any breakdown of the figures in the gate one review.

If the requirement for the project seems in doubt, and the consequences for the local area are so catastrophic, but we accept that there is a problem, it is fair to ask whether there are alternatives. The short answer is yes. The reservoir is one of many strategic resource options open to water companies. There are the Severn Thames transfer, Grand Union Canal transfer and London effluent reuse schemes, desalination schemes and, of course, important leakage reduction measures and water demand reduction.

In its submission to the regulator, to which Thames Water contributed, companies argued that the proposal to link the Severn Thames transfer scheme to the Abingdon reservoir via a pipeline would have “no material…benefit”, but in conversations with my office, Thames Water has said that the Severn Thames transfer depends on the reservoir, as the River Thames does not have the storage capacity for the additional water. Both things cannot be true at the same time. What are they telling us? Why is what they are telling us different to what they have submitted?

Local campaign groups further argue that the Thames does not in fact store the water transferred from the Severn, but that the water simply flows down the river and then gets extracted elsewhere. There is no point in supplying the water from the Severn and pumping it to the Abingdon reservoir, because it can be extracted and stored locally, where it is needed. The common misconception about all these schemes is that they will be supplying large amounts of water all time. That is not true: for the majority of the year, neither scheme would supply more than a trickle flow to keep the pipes clean. When there is a likelihood of shortages, developing schemes will be called on to put water into the Thames, and even then, it will not necessarily be at the maximum rate. The point is that the two schemes are, to a large extent, interchangeable. The Severn Thames transfer is, however, more flexible and more adaptable. It will be delivered earlier at a lower cost and a lower construction carbon footprint. It takes up less land and leaves workings underground, not threatening surrounding villages.

As the justification for the reservoir looks flawed and there appears to be a better alternative, we have to ask how we have ended up debating this proposal yet again. One answer lies in the make-up of Water Resource South East, which is a body of six water companies—that is, six organisations interested in maximising their profits. Thames Water pay-outs in dividends to shareholders of parent companies amounted to £57 billion between 1991 and 2019, nearly half the sum it has spent on maintaining and improving the country’s pipes and treatment plants over that period. With Thames Water’s record of pumping sewage into our rivers and failing to fix leakage problems, how are customers expected to trust it to deliver this new infrastructure project? Water companies in the south-east of England appear to have free rein to implement these plans and projects, with little public scrutiny or engagement. Moreover, they are operating under a veil of secrecy, with one quango being under a non-disclosure agreement to another for a scheme that uses public money. That is surely not right, and when an organisation is permitted to operate in this way, it is unsurprising that an element of group-think pervades it.

However, there is another model. Water Resource East has board members not just from the water companies, but from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, local councils and the Rivers Trust. Engaging local stakeholders at all levels of the organisation is the way to maximise local engagement and improve planning, rather than box-ticking exercises and cursory public consultations.

My constituents’ feeling on this issue runs deep, and it is a campaign that some have been fighting for nearly a lifetime. I therefore urge the Minister to thoroughly interrogate the proposal for this reservoir, especially as the Secretary of State has sign-off for the regional plan in spring 2023. I ask her to look again at the population estimates, ensure sufficient environmental impact analysis, reconsider the structure of Water Resource South East, and make it clear to Thames Water through a written warning that releasing wholly redacted environmental studies is simply unacceptable. As the plan for the reservoir progresses to gate two, £29.8 million of taxpayers’ money has been committed to further feasibility studies. We have been here before, and millions of pounds and copious amounts of time were spent fighting it. All I ask is that before we go around this merry-go-round again, we pause, reflect, properly consult, and make sure every available option is considered fully and transparently.