God bless Thames Water

Its funny that water is now back on in the headlines now that my dissertation drawing to it's close. Since reaching the half way mark and having already decided a direction of where to go with the thesis, Panorama aired a special investigation into water use in South East England. At the time I wanted to see if it had any parallels to the Tryweryn issue and sadly it had no real info. But by watching it, it wasn't in vain at all - I learnt about the awful water company called Thames Water, which serves the very heart of middle England. An estimated 900 million litres of water a day is reported to be lost by leaky pipes underneath fair London and the company are the worst British water authority when it comes to lost water. With the possibility of warmer summers and hosepipe bans a-plenty in the future, the distribution of water is back in the public eye as South East England sweats. And guess what, the thought of taking water from Wales was back on the agenda. Plaid MPs call the recent calls for this extreme water distribution the 'next Tryweryn'. But I guess in times like these with greater political autonomy and the lessons learnt from last time an English authority went at pains to take water from Wales, Tryweryn will never really happen again.

So enter the latest project of Thames Water, who are desperate to escape prying eyes after being criticised for doing too little for it's customers. They propose a £1 billion new articifical reservoir in the heart of Oxfordshire, not far from Abingdon. The authority claim that two villages would be affected, as well as a road between the two will have to re-routed. Already residents have expressed their concerns about the project. Thames Water say that this will solve the water crisis for now and "generations to come". Its great to see the same rhetoric from then is being used again.

Its a shame that this had to be proposed now. It would have been interesting to parallel the events of Tryweryn with the events in Oxfordshire today. But oh well. If you're interested in the story, click here.