Along with the other Conservative MPs in Oxfordshire, I wrote to the CEO of Thames Water to demand that more action is taken to tackle sewage pollution in our waters, and we have secured a meeting with him to discuss this.
The Government has taken decisive action to address the sewage issue, including putting in place the strictest ever legally binding targets, which I was proud to vote for; increasing the monitoring of sewage discharges in England to 100% (up from 7% in 2010 under Labour); ensuring fines against water companies are unlimited; and requiring Thames Water and other water companies to deliver the largest ever infrastructure investment of £56 billion to fix this problem.
However, it’s disappointing that under Thames Water's current plans, sewage overflows will not be reduced by 84% until 2050. It’s even more disappointing that there will only be a reduction of 22% by 2030. My constituents who pay their water bills are rightly very angry about this, and I expect Thames Water to act with far greater urgency - which I will make clear during my meeting with the CEO.
Email me at [email protected] if you have concerns or comments you would like me to raise with him.
Local people are also angry about the flooding that has taken place since the start of the year. I took the Environment Agency to Steventon to talk to them about our flood defences. It has been an exceptional period, with the rainfall in February being 280% higher than normal.
The Environment Agency confirmed that thanks to Government investment in our flood defences over the past decade, 11,000 homes across the Thames Valley were prevented from being flooded this year. I know that this is no comfort to those were flooded so we also discussed how we can continue to improve our flood defences as well as the impact of Government compensation to affected households.
I also raised various constituent concerns and experiences with the Environment Agency including the impact of the proposed reservoir on flooding, as well as other issues like blocked culverts under the Steventon railway bridge, which one constituent was concerned had contributed to flooding. The Environment Agency said they will look into this.
More broadly on the proposed reservoir, I continue to represent my constituents concerns and in the past few months I have met with GARD to discuss how we can continue to work together on this; written to Thames Water regarding their transparency; met with the Water Minister to raise constituent concerns with him about the proposal; and written to the Environment Secretary in December to echo GARD’s call for public scrutiny of it.
I will continue to hold Thames Water accountable on behalf of all my constituents.
