Agenda item

Cabinet Member: Climate Change Delivery & Environment

Forward Plan Ref: 2021/239

Contact: Rachel Wileman, Assistant Director Strategic Infrastructure & Planning Tel: 07554 103491 / Lynette Hughes, Principal Planner Tel: 07920 084360

Report by Corporate Director Environment & Place (CA20).

To seek agreement of the content of a response to the consultation draft Water Resources South East Regional Plan.

The Cabinet is RECOMMENDED to:

a)               Consider the content of a response to the consultation on the emerging Water Resources South East regional plan - the draft is Annex 1 to this report.

b)              Delegate the final written response to the Corporate Director for Environment and Place in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Climate Change Delivery and Environment.

Cabinet’s agreement was sought for the content of a response to the consultation draft Water Resources South East (WRSE) Regional Plan.

Councillor Pete Sudbury, Cabinet Member for Climate Change Delivery & Environment, thanked Lynette Hughes for her work on the report and Derek Stork, Chair of GARD (Group Against Reservoir Development), for sense-checking the arguments, though the arguments were those of the Cabinet Member.

He criticised the plan as being developed behind closed doors by WRSE, lacking any independent or democratic scrutiny.  Examining the evidence, the underlying assumptions included a level of population increase that would require the entire growth in England's population to 2060 to occur in the South-East.

Councillor Sudbury believed that the customers will pick up the bill.  There had been no democratic oversight to protect the bill-payer.  He noted that the

Consultation stated that those schemes in the first 15 years were required across all future scenarios. That was absolute predetermination. There was no consultation on the Abingdon reservoir, not long ago rejected after a public inquiry.

Looking at the other options - fixing leaks, recycling and transfers of water from less water-stressed regions - they accounted for nearly 3000Ml while reservoirs accounted for 332Ml.  At least one of the alternatives, Severn-to-Thames transfer, could deliver 5 years earlier than the reservoir.

Councillor Sudbury added that Thames Water wanted to do almost nothing with recycling and spend £1.4 Bn on a reservoir instead.  He believed that would be an abuse of monopoly power and a misuse of the public's money.  The RAPID process, informed by WRSE, was irremediably flawed and highly likely to come out with an answer that was not in the interests of local people or the citizens of the Thames Valley.

The Chair agreed to a request to speak from Councillor Sally Povolotsky.

Councillor Povolotsky, Hendreds & Harwell, stated that the way of life of communities in her area was under huge threat by the privatised water companies putting profits before people.  She listed questions being asked by residents:

·         Why tell GARD, OCC and the Regulators that flooding studies are immature and will be completed later, while telling local developers that extensive studies have been done and flooding is not an issue?

·         After 20 years of planning, do they really have no diagrams of what this reservoir will look like from the local area?

·         Given their inability to even fix leaks, how do we trust them with building a reservoir safely?

·         Given how much sewage was repeatedly discharged from waterworks around Oxford, much of this will end up extracted and in the reservoir.  How will this be treated to make the water safe?

Councillor Povolotsky concluded by saying that none of these questions had been answered and the reservoir must be stopped.  She thanked officers for their work on the excellent response.

The Chair put the recommendations and they were agreed.

RESOLVED to:

a)           Consider the content of a response to the consultation on the emerging Water Resources South East regional plan - the draft is Annex 1 to this report.

b)           Delegate the final written response to the Corporate Director for Environment and Place in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Climate Change Delivery and Environment.