Sir – Your article ‘Reservoir scheme on agenda again’ (Herald, August 26) correctly identifies that Thames Water has never given up the idea of a reservoir on the site between Steventon and East Hanney, in spite of the fact that this was comprehensively rejected by the public inquiry in 2010.

It also reports the real concerns of the area’s parish councils of the ‘nightmare’ in the construction phase – just think of it as equivalent to a nine-year long housing project concreting over four square miles of area, but further adding the movement of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of material off site and more than a million tonnes of concrete on to the site.

The construction phase is not the worst aspect of this proposal, however. The reservoir will place 150 million tonnes of water on the area, behind a 100ft-high bank. This represents a major flooding risk to the villages of Steventon, East Hanney, to parts of Drayton and to South Abingdon.

The four-square-mile area to be concreted over was identified as an important floodplain area by the Environment Agency, which, if properly managed, would help protect the surrounding areas from the flooding risk that is now an increasingly frequent prospect.

Putting a mega-reservoir in this location will, on the contrary, just lead to diversion of flood relief channels. That water has to go somewhere else and the surrounding villages are the only place to go.

Moreover, the huge quantity of water in the reservoir itself has the risk, in spite of the massive amount of concrete lining and banking, to add to the flood risk in the area.

The implication by Thames Water’s spokesman that the new reservoir need was related to the “population growth in the area” is untrue. As has always been stated in its official literature, this reservoir is needed to supply future increased water use in London.

Oxfordshire and Swindon’s extra water requirements are quite minor and could easily be met by a combination of smaller measures (more use of water from Farmoor, transfer of water from the Oxford Canal, more use of the underground water from aquifers to name but a few).

The 150 million tonne scheme is even 50 per cent larger than the project rejected in 2010. The cost of this £1.2bn reservoir will be borne by all of us in the South East.

GARD (Group Against Reservoir Development) will continue to oppose this development and to argue for much cheaper, more environmentally friendly and flexible alternatives of transferring water to the Thames from the River Severn and of reusing treated water from the London area.

Nick Thompson
Steventon
Chairman, GARD (Group Against Reservoir Development)