Below is a response to the contents of the River Thames Scheme Statutory Consultation Summary Report dated August 2024 from Ian in Surrey.
The River Thames Scheme as it stands actively promotes flooding in Datchet, Wraysbury, Egham, Egham Hythe, Staines Town Centre and Laleham. Hence it is destructive.
According to Google, the River Thames Scheme or RTS is 5 miles in length.
It is in the Public Interest to understand how £100M has been spent (say £20M / mile) , on merely ‘planning’ the RTS without a single millimetre of it having been constructed, hence I have CC’d in the NAO. My request to the NAO is to examine the RTS value for money. I think we all know the answer already, given that the RTS is already 25 years behind schedule and according to Lord Hammond was due for completion in 2022.
I have attached the output from the ‘Consultation’, which in the grand scheme of things, clearly demonstrates that the principal objective has been entirely obscured by smoke and mirrors, combined with a giant helping of entirely irrelevant pith.
The irrelevant pith has been allowed to take ‘centre stage’ to mask the simple fact that the RTS is an irrational ‘broken project’ because, it fails in every way to convey the additional discharge from the outflow of the Jubilee River from Datchet to Truss’s Island, which is an 8 mile omission, deemed floodable by the EA. A paradox.
The capacity expansion of the of the existing Staines Reservoirs Aqueduct Infrastructure route has not even been mentioned, considered, discussed nor ruled out, when quite clearly could be employed in assisting with discharge below Penton Hook, during periods of high transient flows. It’s very clear that the cross sectional capacity of the Aquifer could be increased to 30 sq m, so it is entirely possible it could deliver 120 cumecs during peak demands. The process of re-purposing is merely an engineering exercise.
I looked through 35 pages of expensive inane Consultation waffle. The only comment I could wholeheartedly agree with was on page 34, which said:
“Suggestions
Flood prevention should be the main priority”!
Given that Datchet, Wraysbury, Egham, Egham Hythe, Staines Town Centre and Laleham are all deemed ‘floodable’ by the EA, the scheme cannot be considered to have met its primary objective.
The EA’s refusal to disclose the anatomy of the £100M abortive costs is an abuse of Freedom of Information.
Ofwat was deemed unfit for purpose; this project combined with the 40 years of neglect of every watercourse within the UK demonstrates that the EA is equally unfit for purpose; and has been for many decades.
Yours sincerely,
Ian S.