Before I became an MP, I didn’t realise that PMQs works by electronic ballot; 12-13 names are drawn each week to ask a question. You can also ‘bob’ – stand up after each question to try and be called – but the odds are against you being selected in a 30-minute session.
In the first 25 months of being an MP I was only drawn for 1 PMQ and I made no complaint as it was still 1 more than some of my colleagues have been drawn for.
But in the last 4 weeks I’ve been drawn a further 2 times. The first of these I used to ask a question about the lack of GP practices in the constituency for all the homes we’ve had built. The second I used to ask about the reservoir proposal.
The reservoir proposal from Thames Water is informally known as the Abingdon reservoir, which is a misnomer as it would be entirely within the Wantage and Didcot constituency, in the Steventon/Hanneys/Drayton area. It would have a depth of between 15m and 25m and cover a surface area of 2,500 football pitches.
For over 2 decades, the Group Against Reservoir Development (GARD) has worked hard to ensure the local community understand the apparent flaws in the proposal. They are too many and too varied to cover in a 450-word article but they essentially break down into 4 key areas.
The first is whether the reservoir is actually needed. GARD has highlighted what look to be considerable over-estimates of how much water is going to be needed by the years 2040 and 2060.
The second is whether the alternatives to this proposal have been properly considered. One such alternative would be piping water from the River Severn instead, a significantly cheaper option. The reservoir proposal is not in fact designed to store water for this constituency but largely for London. Tackling leakage would also help.
The environmental impact is a third key area: both the impact on natural habitats as well as the carbon footprint of the construction and running of a reservoir. And the fourth is ensuring the local community is consulted properly and the decision is not presented as a fait accompli.
A public enquiry into the 2009 draft water resources plan, the key document by which ideas like this reservoir are proposed, threw it out as not meeting the standards expected in multiple ways.
In my PMQ I described the proposal as a shadow over the local community. I would rather we spent our time on infrastructure everyone wants, like more GP surgeries or Grove Station. The onus remains on Thames Water to try and prove why we should want the proposed reservoir built.
