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The drought across most of the country has highlighted the “obvious” need for additional water resources according to Anglian Water, which is developing two new reservoirs.
The company said the “reality is stark” for the east of England, which is facing a water deficit and population growth. To ease the pressure, Anglian has proposed two new reservoirs at a combined cost of £3.77 billion.
Whole-life costs for a site in the Fens will be £1.97 billion, while costs for two proposals for Lincolnshire have been calculated to range from £1.1 billion to £1.8 billion with work anticipated to begin in 2030 and able to supply up to 750,000 new homes from the end of the 2030s.
Consultation on plans, which have been in development for the past 10 years, will begin in the autumn as part of Anglian’s 25-year water resources management plan (WRMP) to boost resilience to drought.
The combination of climate change and 175,000 new homes being built in the next five years means the region faces a deficit of millions of litres daily and demand is forecast to double if no action is taken.
As well as providing for additional customers, the reservoirs will allow Anglian to reduce abstraction from rivers and aquifers.
“It’s plain to see when you look out the window right now just how precious water is,” Alex Plant, director of strategy and regulation for Anglian, said. “The current situation presents an obvious backdrop as to why projects like this are needed, but the reality is because we’ve known the future promises many more people, but far fewer raindrops, we have been working on these projects for years, as we know how long they take to come to fruition.”
He stressed that the reservoirs together with leakage reductions and a north to south water transfer scheme are only part of the company’s plans to meet the projected deficit.
“We should be clear – while all of these projects cumulatively will help to keep taps running, they are necessary because the demand for water will greatly outstrip the available supply unless we take action now, which is why we still all need to do our bit to use less.”
Potential locations are currently being assessed to consider impacts on people, communities and environmental impacts as well as existing water sources and engineering requirements.
Hannah Stanley-Jones, head of future resources strategy for the company, stressed the planning process was in very early stages, with locations to be unveiled in the autumn as the first of three phases of the consultation.
She said: “Construction of the new reservoirs could begin by 2030 with the hope that they would start supplying water to customer taps by the mid to late 2030s.”
In Hampshire, work is underway for the first major reservoir since the 1980s by Portsmouth Water at Havant Thicket. It will bolster supplies for neighbouring Southern Water as part of the two companies’ water transfer agreement.
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