A new super reservoir approved in Oxfordshire
I grew up in Abingdon near Oxford, spent over 20 years in the Cowley car industry as a shop steward, and lived in London for many years, moving back to Abingdon in May 2021. I have been a member of the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in September when I was living in Southwark.
On September 4th of this year, Steven Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs of the recently elected Labour Government, not himself a radical figure, granted planning approval for a new £1.2 billion super-reservoir on the Upper Thames just west of Abingdon. It is a joint proposal by Thames Water, Southern Water, and Affinity Water — who have a joint (and contiguous) customer base of 38 million in the South East. Thames Water is by far the biggest of the three with 16 million customers, the others have 8 million and 4 million respectively.
They argue that they will need an extra 350 million litres of water a day for a population increase of 2.1 million over the next 5 years. The South-East of England is permanently threatened by water shortages brought about by a shocking lack of planning and investment by the water companies, alongside their failure to reduce demand and conserve supplies.
We currently face the scandalous situation where every river in England is polluted. (My article on Thames water and sewage spillages can be found here.
The new reservoir will be very big — almost the size Gatwick airport, or indeed of Abingdon itself. It is to be built on farmland between the villages of East Hanney, Steventon, and Marcham. The site, which is two miles west of Abingdon town centre, is bounded by the A34, the London to Bristol railway line, and the river Ock. It will have a capacity of 15 billion litres of water and will boost supplies across the south east including London.
The new Labour government
Steven Reed’s action reflected the speed with which Ed Miliband, the Secretary of state for Energy Security and Net-Zero Emissions, has approached such new construction projects. He said the new reservoir was needed meet the needs of an expanding population and improve the environment. Thames Water’s Director of Engineering, who was also present, said that: “ The new reservoir would help protect millions of people for the next century and beyond from the risk of drought. It would also provide a unique opportunely to deliver new habitats, walking trails and recreation spaces.”
This will be the first major reservoir to be built in the South East for 30 years — i.e. since privatisation. It will have a surface area 6.7 square kilometres, will be an average of 22 metres deep, with containing embankments up to 25 metres high. It is known as the South East Strategic Reserve Option (SESRO), or the (Interim) Master Plan 2024.
It will be an ‘above ground’ construction, sometimes referred to as a ‘retention basin’. The site is chosen because of the proximity of a major river — in the case the Thames — and because it’s geology has the necessary water retaining qualities: i.e. a clay base. It will take water from the Thames in winter when it is plentiful and use it to combat drought and water shortages in the summer.
The Tories have sat on this project for many years in order to appease their rural MPs abs constituencies. This attitude was reinforced after Sunak’s collapse into climate denial after narrowly winning the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election (Boris Johnsons’ old seat) where he interpreted a backlash against Ulez as an opportunity to win the general election. Now under Labour the new reservoir has been given the go-ahead.
Assurances given
Assurances have been given about the future of the river Ock, a local chalk stream that emanates from White Horse Hill and passes close to the new reservoir on its way to join the Thames at Abingdon. It has already been seriously damaged by agricultural run-off and its flow reduced by agricultural boreholes. (A more detailed assessment of the state of the Ock can be found here.)
The Inland Waterways Association has also been given assurances regarding their quest for a way under the A34 and a route to the Thames in their campaign to reopen the Berks and Wilts Canal between Abingdon and Semington in Somerset.
Most people hate Thames Water because of the way they has exploited privatisation, polluted the Thames with raw sewage, failed to fix water leaks, and their propensity to pay dividends to shareholders whatever comes. Just days before the ne reservoir was granted planning permission that has warned that the company will not survive unless it is allowed to increase water bills by 59 per cent over the next five year period.
Most people also want to see Thames Water brought back into public ownership. In fact given the current state of its finances this may happen sooner rather than later. A recent Guardian investigation published on November 17th 2024 has revealed that little has changed. Thames Water has £23bn of assets that are in urgent need of repair and the supply of water to its 16m customers in ‘on a knife edge’.
Biodiversity
Claims that the new reservoir will reduce biodiversity are misplaced. Farmland is already seriously biodiversity deplete whist wild life will be attracted towards a new stretch of water, which will be stocked with fish, witch, along with myriad other aquatic creatures that will live in the reservoir will provide greater biodiversity than the equivalent land use for farming. Something which makes the angling organisations very happy.
Chris Goodall, a writer on ecological issues and the Green Party candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon in the recent general election, is very clear about this when writing about the Botley West solar farm.
“Intensely farmed agricultural land (he tells us) has truly awful levels of biodiversity. Large, over-cultivated fields with few hedgerows are always terrible for nature. Unfortunately, much of the land that Botley West will use has been farmed excessively and will benefit from a switch to hosting solar panels; ploughing will stop as will the use of fertilisers and pesticides.”
The developers argue in their official brochure that they will create “10 kilometres of new embankments … with the outer slopes covered with grassland and pasture with new woodlands, paths and hedgerows…” Alongside the new reservoir, they say, “we’re planning to introduce significant enhancements to local habitats and biodiversity, including over 90 hectares of new woodland, scrub, ditches, wet woodland and wet grassland.”
Opposition groups
There has been opposition to the new reservoir since it was first mooted in 1996. The most significantly grouping is The Group Against Reservoir Development, or GARD. It is a coalition of people from nearby villages. The ‘alternative way forward’ they offer on their website starts very well:
“GARD believes that the primary aims of any water resource plan to address the water shortages in the South-East (overwhelmingly a London problem) should be to provide a secure, sustainable and resilient system against the future population increases, climate change, and prolonged drought.”
After this, however, most of GARD’s proposals are things that need to be campaigned on here and now: stopping the leaks, stopping the sewage pollution, recycling waste water, more water metres, and the education of water users. They also advocate desalination plants in coastal areas (which are unlikely to make sense) and assert, without evidence, that a major reservoir is not necessary, would not work, or would make things worse. They have also campaigned around a public inquiry into the proposal before it is implemented,
Their most contentious proposal, however, is the transfer of water from one catchment to another either by large pipes or via water courses. This is ecologically damaging, and provides only the shortest of short-term solutions. Thames Water supported this at one stage last year, proposing to transfer water from the Severn to the Thames when it was low. George Monbiot railed against the proposal in the Guardian of March 2023.
“…True to form, London and the south-east would gain, while the west and north-west would lose. If water is diverted from these regions, they lose resilience. Spare capacity declines. Local farmers can no longer adapt to a changing climate that might increase their need for water. Water companies may have to start extracting more from other rivers, such as the Dee, which already shrinks to its rocky bones in dry summers
‘When water levels in the Thames are low, they are likely to be low in the Severn, regardless of these diversions and discharges. Despite higher rainfall in the west of England and Wales, the river systems there still come under pressure. Already, the Severn catchment suffers from severe over-extraction. One of its tributaries, the Teme, dried up completely last summer. Aquifers are shrinking, wetlands are drying up. Conservation groups are desperately seeking to restore them.”
Local politics
Initially, opposition to a new reservoir was led by Tories, but more recently it has been the Liberal Democrats. They have a lot of councillors in rural Oxfordshire and are prepared to ignore the strategic reality of water supply and support opportunist policies which can win them short-term votes. Even those who recognise that the reservoir is necessary seem unprepared to say so for electoral reasons.
The Greens made progress in the general election but were clobbered by the first past the post electoral system. Instead of the 45 MPs they should have got under a proportional system, they received just 5. When it comes to the reservoir, however, they are indistinguishable from the Liberal Democrats themselves.
Bethia Thomas, the Lib Dem leader of the Vale of White Horse District Council, who’s territory the reservoir will be on, responded to Reed’s announcement on September 4th. “I’m deeply disappointed” she said, that the Secretary of State has signed off this plan. Although she supports the needs case for a new reservoir in Oxfordshire the council believes there are other options that could achieve this.”
“I wrote to the Secretary of State back in July, setting out our concerns. I had hoped to arrange a meeting to call for the whole process to be paused – so the news this week regarding this decision is incredibly frustrating as we had wanted to put our case to him… We remain opposed to these proposals, and this news makes taking a stand against them much more challenging, but we will continue to do what is within our limited power.”
This statement by the Vale District Council puts Liberal Democrat MPs, including Leyla Moran the MP for Oxford West and Abingdon since 2017, in a strong position. The Vale has 32 Lib Dem councillors, 4 Greens and 2 Independent Voice. The general election produced more Liberal Democrat MPs in the area. Wantage and Didcot now have Liberal Democrat MPs, as does Witney, David Cameron’s old seat. The Vale of White Horse DC, which covers parts of Oxford, Abingdon, Farringdon, and Witney is also Liberal Democrat.
(Layla Moran’ father is Palestinian and her mother is a Cristian Arab from Jerusalem. Whist she has been a strong on Palestinian rights, she takes the Liberal Democrat line on the reservoir, leading the opposition to it in Parliament in recent years. She has also backed the call for a public inquiry. Her great grandfather is the Palestinian icon Wasif Jawhariyyeh (1904–1948) who was a writer, musician, composer, and chronicler of the Palestinian struggle under the Otterman’s.)
The Oxfordshire County Council also has a Lib Dem majority and Lib Dem leader. It is a coalition of Liberal Democrats and Greens. It’s most recent statement also contains alternative proposals: in particular the transfer of water from other catchments. It also raised concerns about size of the reservoir, its potential to be ineffective, the “huge costs” involved, and the environmental effects of the project both during construction and during operation.”
Public consultation
After I moved back to Abingdon I asked about the reservoir at my first meeting of the Abingdon Labour Party. I was told that the branch was against it, and I initially adopted that position. I argued that Thames Water should fix their leaks, stop polluting our rivers, waterways, and beaches with raw sewage, and after that think about a new reservoir.
In June of this year, however, I attended a public consultation on the new reservoir organised by Thames Water and changed my mind. I went to the meeting opposed to the new reservoir and came away convinced that it was unavoidable and that construction and should go ahead as soon as possible, and that the leakages and sewerage spills, although serious, can, should, be delt with simultaneously with construction of the reservoir.
What convinced me was not just the need for more water in the South East, or even escalating climate change, I was already convinced about that, but the build time of the reservoir — which is 16 years. It is just not possible to hold up construction for such a period of time by what are important but ultimately secondary factors. In other words it exposed the shallowness of my position.
When I raised my experience at the consultation in the Abingdon Labour Party not only was the meeting suddenly in favour of the reservoir but a decision was taken, unanimously, to ask the Oxford Labour Party (with which the Abingdon party has a joint membership meeting once a month) to reopen the debate and think again.
Population growth
Rising human population numbers are given by both the government and the water companies as the central rationale the new reservoir, so it is important that something is said about it.
The current population of the UK is 69 million plus, and growing. This is primarily due to migration, and is expected to reach 70 million by 2026. This is unfortunately a taboo subject on the radical left, and is only reluctantly taken into account by local authorities and planers of essential services. The global population is growing by 82 million a year. How can 82 million people a year – equivalent to the population of Germany – not have an impact on an already overstretched planet and its diminishing and finite resources? It is a ridiculous proposition.
Population density has an impact on public services such as healthcare, housing and education – both in terms of the users of the services and those who provide them.
People are on the move big-time and for multiple reasons. They are fleeing from starvation, wars, and climate change, and from dictatorial regimes, or simply because they want a better life than the cards they have been dealt. This is only going to get worse, and Labour have nothing to say on migration different to the Tories other than they will keep them out of the country more efficiently than the Tories. Not a word is being said about safe routes into the country for asylum seekers to use.
A good start would be — apart from not invading other people’s countries — would be to provide women, globally, with what they have always wanted and campaigned for, which is the means to control their own bodies and their own lives. Such measures could at least stabilises population numbers.
Least convincing
The least convincing part of the (Interim) Master Plan is the claim that will prevent the flooding in the Ock catchment, which currently floods frequently. The brochure tell us that the plan includes: “water course diversions, wetlands and replacement floodplain storage areas, to channel and store water, manage flooding and contribute to overall biodiversity gains” will solve the problem. “We are aware of the existing flooding issues in and around the proposed location of the new reservoir including:
- Fluvial flooding, caused by rivers and streams overflowing their banks
- Surface water flooding, caused by groundwater rimming over or ponding on the ground
- Groundwater flooding, caused by rising above the surface”
If unmanaged the new reservoir could make the local flooding situation worse, so it is vital that we put in pace measures to ensure that this does not happen… To mitigate this, new surface water channels to the west and the east of the reservoir would be used to intercept this groundwater” We shall see.”
Conclusion
Socialists, however, should support Labour when it says that it that it will bulldoze its way through the planning system where it encounters filibustering.
Blocking long-term strategic planning in such a contrived way is not acceptable. There is nothing socialist or ecosocialist about it. As socialists we have a responsibility not only to deal with the leaks and spillages, but to ensure the continuity of water supply on which life in modern society depends. This means that securing future water supply and fixing the leaks and controlling pollution must be done simultaneously. Consultation must mean consultation and not filibustering.
When Ed Miliband granted planning permission for solar farms at Mallard Pass in Rutland, Gate Burton in Lincolnshire, and the Sunnica Solar Energy Park in Suffolk, the objectors were furious. One of them the Tory MP for Rutland and Stamford, Alicia Kearns, a strong supporter of the campaign against the Stop the Mallards Pass Campaign. wrote to them in the following terms:
“I am utterly appalled that less than one week into his role, Ed Miliband approved the Mallard Pass Solar Plant for construction. This shows a complete disregard for community consent, contempt for human rights, and a complete failure to understand food security is a national security issue.
“In waving through three of these mass mega-solar projects, he has given a green light to every company complicit in Uyghur genocide seeking to make a profit off our agricultural land. 6,295 acres of agricultural land will be lost… I struggle to believe the Secretary of State has engaged with the detail or read all of the documentation and representations. It is also not in line with the written statement I secured from the last Government which put food security first.
“This is a slap in the face for all those who value human rights, food security, upholding standards in business, and protecting our agricultural land. I am sorry to all those who have campaigned so hard, for so long, and whose voices today were flagrantly dismissed… Mallard Pass still needs to deliver a number of reports and plans before they can get building, and I plan to hold them to account on every single one and ensure they cannot proceed unless they deliver them.”
This is not acceptable. The demand for fresh water has long outpaced its replenishment rate by precipitation – rain and snowfall. As a result of this we have been depleting underground reserves, in the form of aquifers, at an ever increasing rate. By 2025, an estimated 1.8 billion people will live in areas facing serious water shortages, with two-thirds of the world’s population living in water-stressed regions.
The campaigns against this proposal are very similar to those against electricity pillions which eventually stopped on-shore wind power development completely. This must not be allowed to happen to solar power now that its price has fallen dramatically or indeed to an adequate supply of domestic water.
Socialists should be partisans of such infrastructure and be prepared to defend it against what are often the politics of nimbyism.
Alan Thornett, November 22nd 2024
