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This website has been created using the best information available to GARD at the time of its compilation. The opinions expressed are based on GARD’s perception of the issues involved and the stance taken by Thames Water.

 

 
 

NEWS BRIEFING

 

For pre 2021 News click here!


LATEST NEWS

December 2023

Thames Water challenged by Oxfordshire
Campaigners’ call for Public Inquiry into ‘Mega Reservoir’

The Oxfordshire community-based group GARD has called on the Secretary of State for the Environment to order a Public Inquiry into Thames Water’s plan to go ahead with their “unacceptable, unnecessary and expensive” proposal for a huge reservoir near Abingdon, completely ignoring strong opposition in their consultation process.
GARD maintains that Thames Water’s justification for choosing this project, as opposed to the reasonable, cost-effective and more environmentally friendly alternatives, is seriously flawed. Alternatives include cutting their extremely high levels of leakage to industry-average levels, and boosting the extractable River Thames flow by transferring new water by pipeline from the River Severn. The justification’s serious flaws include the following:

  1. Thames Water have overstated the future demand for water the population increase on which they base demand would involve a south-east population increase greater than that of the whole of England.
  2. The need for the larger 150Mm3 (million cubic metres of water) option which is included in the revised draft WRMP (as opposed to the smaller 100Mm3 option on which the public were consulted) has not been sufficiently justified. As a result, the consultation process carried out was inadequately and unfairly done.
  3. The cost of the reservoir has been seriously underestimated by Thames Water and there has been a lack of transparent cost comparison against other potential resource options.
  4. Thames Water should prioritise bringing their huge leakage level down to the industry average, to help meet the demand for water.
  5. The reservoir’s drought resilience has not been adequately assessed by Thames Water. The reservoir would be situated in a water-stressed area and would not be sustainable in a long drought. ‘New water’ from outside the Thames catchment is needed via water transfer from the River Severn. The water transfer option would provide water security more rapidly (six years earlier) and at lower cost to consumers.
  6. Thames Water’s Strategic Environmental Assessment is legally flawed, and their general assessment of the environmental impact of the reservoir is inadequate, biased, and does not demonstrate an overall positive environmental benefit.
  7. The safety and flooding implications have not been addressed, as Thames Water has rejected demands for transparency in how floods will be mitigated and the consequences of a major fault in the reservoir embankment.

GARD also has serious reservations that even the decade-long predicted construction time of the reservoir will overrun, as there is only a ‘conceptual design’ of the project, with few detailed investigations of the area’s geology, even after a quarter of a century in gestation.
GARD believes that the inclusion of the reservoir in Thames Water’s plan should not be allowed to proceed for further development until a proper, transparent, public assessment of the proposal’s costs, environmental impact, drought resilience compared to alternatives, and safety and flood risk potential has been carried out and published.

GARD Chairman Derek Stork stated that“Thames Water’s proposal has completely ignored local opinion, and, whilst refusing to be transparent about the justifications, costs and risks of its plan, has doubled down and is promoting a reservoir 50% larger than both that on which the public were consulted earlier this year and that thrown out at the 2010 Public Inquiry. This proposal is unacceptable, unnecessary and too expensive. It brings no new water into our water-stressed area, and could not be in operation until many years after the alternative of water transfers.”

 

April 2023

Thames Water and WRSE ignore criticisms of their draft plans and ‘double down’ to select an even bigger Reservoir for Abingdon!

  • GARD is pushing against this decision with MPs and Regulators
  • Your support is vital to oppose this disastrous and unnecessary mega-project.

Thames Water and WRSE finally published their revised draft plans on 30th August. (Thames the revised draft Water Resource Management Plan, and WRSE the revised draft Regional Plan.

  • Both have decided to select the largest possible version of the Abingdon Reservoir (‘SESRO’) for their plans.

  • The size proposed is 150 Billion litres. That’s 150 million tonnes of water sitting above nearby villages – this is 50% larger than the reservoir version rejected at the 2010 Public Inquiry, and 50% larger than the version on which the public were consulted, and which was overwhelmingly criticised and rejected by residents, councils and stakeholder organisations in Oxfordshire.

  • Thames have rejected demands for more transparency in how floods will be mitigated and what the consequences of a major fault in the Reservoir embankment will be, by claiming that the ‘the level of detail in the design is appropriate for this stge in the project’ and ‘more detail will be shared later’. This in spite of the project having been proposed for over 25 years! GARD believes that the Reservoir should NOT be allowed to proceed for further evaluation UNTIL a proper public assessment of the Reservoir’s safety and flood risk potential has been carried out and published.

  • They have ruled out the quicker, we believe cheaper and more environmentally adaptive Severn Thames Transfer, designed to bring fresh water from the Northwest to the more drought-prone Southeast. Even Southern Water, planned beneficiary of 2/3 of the reservoir capacity, is challenging the cost and logic of the water transfer scheme from the reservoir

  • Thames Water has essentially rejected GARD’s and probably your objections too, including the need to challenge the inaccurate population forecasts say they are forced to use.

This is an intolerable state of affairs and must be opposed.

  • The Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, could agree for Thames Water to proceed within weeks with no further consultation necessary. However, with Thames Water now accused of illegal sewage dumping and their own financial health in doubt, we’re sure you feel you should take action! 

  • Please Lobby your MP: we have support of the Vale of White Horse and Oxford County Councils, and we lobby within the industry, but you can still help:

    • If you live in Abingdon, you can support your MP Layla Moran’s opposition – and seek her support  layla.moran.mp@parliament.uk

    • If your MP is David Johnston in Wantage (covering also Grove and the villages of Steventon, East and West Hanney, East and West Hendred, Drayton,  Garford, Milton, Ardington and Sutton Courtenay) you can contact  david.johnston.mp@parliament.uk  It is important to ensure that he now also opposes the reservoir and lobbies Thérèse Coffey

    • If you made a complaint in the consultations, you should have received a response in Thames Water’s and WRSE’s statement of responses. The responses to individuals from TW are here TW SoR to individuals and small organisations – you should have received and ‘ID’ from Thames to find their response to you, if you have not, then you should contact them.
      If you want to see the TW response to GARD’s points then go to TW SoR to large orgnisation submissions. . ou will also find Oxfordshire County Council and the Vale of Whaite Horse DC responses their. You will see how TW just attempt to brush off criticism which does not suit their narrative.
      Don’t let them get away with it!

    • Please copy gard.secretary@gmail.com into any correspondence. 

RAPID/Ofwat and the Gated Process

In our June news we said we would be publishing our letter to Ofwat/RAPID about their lamentable scrutiny of the Strategic Water schemes (like the Abingdon Reservoir). You can find it here. (link to pdf).

Rapid have declined to make a written reply, but we have had round table meetings with them, on some subjects and more are planned. We will continue to press them to take their scrutiny responsibilities more seriously.

We need your support on this. The Regulators must take on the Water Companies more vigorously!

 

28 February 2023

Thames Water draft WRMP published; respond now to defeat the Reservoir

Thames Water’s draft WRMP was published mid-December, and consultation ends Tuesday 21st March.  Abingdon Reservoir is still central to Thames Water’s plans with construction starting ahead of the Severn Thames Transfer, for no good reason. If the reservoir plan goes through, you will have to pay for the reservoir through a levy on your water bill, even though that money is needed to increase sewage infrastructure and fix leaks, and even before a drop of water is supplied by the reservoir.

The reservoir is a solution looking for a problem. In this plan, it is no longer to provide water for Oxfordshire and Swindon (as in 2010), nor mainly for London (as in 2019). Now the plan is to send most of the water out of the water-stressed Thames region, to sell it by pipeline to Portsmouth, for simple profit. The planned reservoir is unnecessary (the population figures and reduced water abstraction figures are grossly exaggerated), ecologically disastrous (biodiversity cannot be restored and a huge amount of carbon is released in construction) and dangerous (pollution, general flood risk and risk of catastrophic inundation).

You can make a difference to the outcome, as you did in March 2022, by responding vigorously to the consultation. Information and bullet points to help with the response are available CLICK HERE, on the website. In addition there are also helpful suggested answers to questions which can be found HERE NB if there are two householders, it is helpful if both submit a response. Oxfordshire County Council, the Vale of the White Horse District Council and your local MPs remain strongly opposed to the plan and these democratic representatives would like to know you have responded. A list of MP and Council contacts is on this website at  LINKS; please copy your response to them and to GARD.

GARD’s message to Thames Water is: Stop the Reservoir, fix the leaks, transfer new water from the Severn. You have seen the banners – now you have a chance to make your own voice heard. RESPOND NOW to the Water Resources South-East (WRSE) plan and to Thames Water’s Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP).

The links to the responses are:
WRSE https://wrse.uk.engagementhq.com/
and you can see the draft Plan at
https://www.wrse.org.uk/media/va1bz21z/10306a_wrse-bv-plan-2022final_online.pdf

Thames Water
: https://thames-wrmp.co.uk/
and you can see the draft Plan at
https://thames-wrmp.co.uk/hearing-your-views/document-library/

GARD is holding public meetings
in February; so is Thames Water.
Please come to ours for information and help, and attend the Thames Water to ask questions.
GARD:
Grove:             Friday 27 January – Wantage and Grove Campaign Group  and GARD,
Old Mill Hall, Grove 7.30pm
Steventon:     Tuesday 14 February -  Steventon Village Hall  Millenium Room, 7.30pm
Abingdon:      Thursday 16 February - Preston Rd Community Centre, Abingdon
THAMES WATER:
Abingdon:      Friday 20 January - Trinity Church Abingdon, drop-in
Oxford:           Wednesday 1 February -  Westgate pop-up 
Steventon:     Saturday 18 February -  Steventon Village Hall, drop-in

GARD will keep up the pressure on WRSE and Thames Water to drop the ruinous Reservoir project from their plans. We now have unanimous local political opposition on our side. Find out how to take Action and join us, and keep up to date on GARD Facebook.

 

 

14th November 2022

Water Resources South East reveal draft

Regional Plan:


Mega - reservoir is still centre stage – if slightly smaller


WRSE launched their draft Regional Plan for the South East on 14th November.


WRSE have produced their draft regional plan, a summary can be found by clicking here

The Abingdon ‘Mega-reservoir’ is still centre stage in the plan “ …to be completed by 2040”,
but at a slightly smaller size (100 Billion litres of water instead of 150 Billion).

So, is this progress? The answer is NO!

  • The Reservoir would still be the size of Gatwick Airport

  • It would still take over 10 years of hugely disruptive works to complete

  • It would still be ‘a water tank’ built above ground.

  • Its construction would still cause huge environmental damage, huge carbon footprint and loss of biodiversity.

  • It is still larger than the maximum size where proper flood risk compensation could be achieved, according to the Thames Water 2018 report.

  • Now it is smaller, it is even less resilient to being dried up in long droughts!

We have been here before: just before the 2010 Public Inquiry, Thames Water reduced the size of the proposed reservoir in just this fashion (150 Billion litres down to 100 Billion) in the hope it would sneak through the Public Inquiry.
The Inspector still threw out the plans. That is what should happen now.
Instead, Thames Water should be forced to fix their appalling leakage more quickly (Oxfordshire Area’s leakage rate actually increased from 2016 to 2022!)
.
And, the companies should invest in Water Transfer into the Thames Basin from the River Severn
– this is much more resilient to drought, but has been pushed back to late 2040s by WRSE.

GARD will be campaigning vigorously against the reservoir proposals and in favour of Water Transfer.

It is important to make your objections clear to WRSE and Thames Water.

GARD will be holding public meetings as listed below – come along and make your voice heard.


Read our leaflet download it <here>

 

 

Water Resources South East Plan
slammed by Stakeholders in Consultation (June 2022)

On 20th May, Water Resources South East (WRSE) published the summary and statistics of the Response to the consultation on their ‘Emerging Regional Water Resources Plan’.

There was across the board criticism of the Plan from Stakeholders, and it is clear (and has been admitted by them) that WRSE were taken by surprise at the scale and the level of dissatisfaction shown in the responses received.

The Abingdon Reservoir is the strategic project on which most opposition has been registered in the consultation - there were over 500 (out of 1150) responses which opposed this project.

It is encouraging g, but not surprising to us, that there has been a lot of support for GARD’s view in the other responses. GARD's response to the consultation has been summarised in a fair and reasonable way at various points in WRSE’s document. They seem to have read our response and registered our numerous criticisms - even though they make outright rejection at some points. GARD is mentioned 25 times in the response (against Ofwat's 18).

We await evidence that WRSE have really listened however, as there is no concrete evidence that they have changed course. WRSE make little attempt to address our concerns now, mainly ducking them.

Ofwat have criticised the lack of detailed cost and environmental evidence in the plan and WRSE have committed to provide more in the draft plan in the Autumn. There has been a lot of criticism of the adoption of just a single deficit scenario to 2040, including from both Ofwat and Environment Agency (EA).  This does seem to have touched a nerve, but the WRSE response has still been very woolly. This adoption of a single ‘near worst case’ scenario must continue to be challenged by local Oxfordshire groups. WRSE are on very weak ground here.

There has evidently been a lot of criticism of the inflated figures for abstraction reductions needed from vulnerable streams and lack of evidence to support them. We should keep pressing. GARD and Oxfordshire should continue to advocate prioritisation and realism.

It is good to see widespread support of the EA's personal consumption target of 110 litres per person pre day (ducked by WRSE). As this has been re-emphasised by Ofwat and the EA, we expect WRSE to take action and reduce the scale of the water resources to be built.

Finally, there is evidently a lot of support for Severn Thames Transfer. This was the option with the biggest support (300 out of 1150 respondents). This is very encouraging to see the support for GARD’s preferred alternative to the Reservoir.

The WRSE response can be seen at https://wrse.uk.engagementhq.com/our-regional-plan, following the link to the “Emerging Regional Plan consultation response”. Ofwat’s criticism of WRSE is at https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/14-03-2022-WRSE-regional-plan-letter-for-web.pdf.

 

 

Excellent Local Response to WRSE
Emerging Regional Plan

February 2022
Complete Rejection by Oxfordshire organisations and residents. 


A message from GARD chair - Derek Stork

" It has been a very busy and encouraging time for the past couple of months.
Now the dust has settled on the WRSE consultation, and before our next challenge, I'd like to add my thanks to all GARD members and supporters who responded so forcefully to the WRSE emerging regional plan. I'd like to thank you all for your physical support too, with leaflets and meetings. It is really heartening.

You can find the GARD response on our downloads page

I'd also like to thank all the elected representatives who supported us throughout this campaign and in recent months. This was started by Oxfordshire County Council but rapidly taken up by the Vale of White Horse District Council, South Oxfordshire District Council and our MPs, David Johnston (Wantage) and Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon). The local parishes in the area to be affected by the Reservoir overwhelmingly also wrote to WRSE rejecting the plans.

The County’s policy is stated here:
https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/oxfordshire-county-council-calls-for-giant-reservoir-plan-to-be-scrapped-again/

The Vale of White Horse DC’s policy statement (including link to the consultation response) is here:
https://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/planning/the-vale-rejects-the-need-for-gigantic-new-environmentally-disastrous-reservoir/

Finally, the South Oxfordshire DC’s policy statement (and link to the consultation response) is here:
https://www.southoxon.gov.uk/planning/reservoir-plans-should-be-urgently-reviewed/

The most striking, and to me the most powerful, aspect of this support was that it was entirely unanimous and non-partisan at all levels.

We at GARD think that this is the key to successfully opposing this monstrous project. A united non-partisan campaign is what we have always sought and will continue to seek. We look forward to working with all elected representatives on this.

"Here's to success in the future.”

Derek Stork

 

Abingdon Reservoir August 2021
Latest News from GARD

We haven’t been in touch for a while but rest assured that GARD Officers have continued to monitor the activities of the water companies, engage with local and national stakeholders and provide informed and robust opposition to the proposed reservoir.

To recap – as a result of GARD and others’ opposition, the regulators have required the water companies to undertake research to evaluate the pros and cons of the reservoir and alternative strategies, before a final recommendation can be made.  Many of you will be familiar with a ‘gated process’.  This is when major projects are broken down into phases, each marked by a ‘gate’ at which reports are provided to decision makers who review and decide on next steps. 

Well, Gate One has now been reached and reports are available for all the strategic options, but, most importantly, the reservoir (now being called ‘South East Strategic Reservoir Option – SESRO), London Effluent Reuse and Severn – Thames Transfer.  The reports are superficially detailed but, in our view, flawed.  Figures are quoted with almost no  justification, there is no reference to key documents relating to embedded and operational carbon budgets, capital and operational costs, resilience claims and, most crucially, no reference to recent flooding studies.  In all three documents, the proposal is to advance the projects to Gate Two.  GARD has now submitted a detailed response to the Gate One reports.

If you are interested in reading more, here is the link to the reports on the GARD website (Documents to download page).  They are long documents but the Executive Summaries are only 2 pages and give you the gist. The GARD response is also on this page.  http://www.abingdonreservoir.org.uk/downloads.html

We have also expressed our concerns that the documents were released in an opaque manner and without, as far as we know, any notification to any of the local Oxfordshire organisations who have asked to be kept informed throughout the process. This all indicates that OFWAT and RAPID (the umbrella group that brings the regulators together) are not committed to a transparent process.

We have gained important allies since the local council elections in May.  Most notably, the new OCC councillor for Hendreds and Harwell (which includes Steventon) Sally Povolotsky,  has been vocal in her support.  We are aiming to ensure that all relevant councils and councillors are well briefed and fully understand GARD’s position and the evidence behind it.

 

2021 AGM

Due to Covid related restrictions, we were unable to hold our AGM last year.  We hope that by this Autumn, we will all feel more comfortable about attending meetings.  This year’s AGM will be 7.30pm on 1st December at St Michael’s Hall, Steventon (the small hall next to the church).  We do hope to see you there.


May 2021

Following the local elections on 6th May, there have been significant changes to the makeup of Oxfordshire County Council.  Click here for an up to date list of councillors and their email addresses. GARD officers will be seeking opportunities to brief those that represent us to ensure that they have the best up to date understanding of the challenges regarding the proposed reservoir.


For all pre 2020 News click here!

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