Surrey County, Woking and Spelthorne Borough Councils all have significant debt. RBWM likewise.
The total cost of the River Thames Scheme project to date is about £90m. The RTS was started around 2008, three new bypass channels were reduced to two in 2020 due to lack of Partnership Funding from RBWM – and there is still no application submitted for a Development Consent Order. If a DCO is approved AND Surrey County Council is able to afford the required PF contribution (£230m) – the total cost of the RTS project could be approaching £1bn.
My view is that the DHEFIM (the replacement for the previously removed RTS Channel 1) will not attract sufficient Partnership Funding to make that project viable. Consequently the RTS project itself becomes incoherent due to lack of connectivity with the previous MWEFAS project which was completed in 2002 – and is still unable to convey its design capacity.
What right-minded Minister is going to put their name to another half-baked flood alleviation project after the last fiasco?