This year is the 20th Anniversary of the Queen Mother Reservoir pipe burst. In April 2006, failure of a large diameter underground water pipe caused serious damage and property flooding in Datchet.
The consequences could have been far worse. We were just a whisker from a world-class flood event and the truth is still being hidden today by the EA. ‘The truth is that if the pipe had failed any closer to the embankment, a local story could have been world news’!
The pipe is approximately 8 ft (2.4m) in diameter and 30m below the surface, and carries water between the pumping station on Horton Road to the Queen Mother Reservoir, running beneath the road, the Datchet Common Brook and the reservoir embankment that rises some 25m above ground level.
Being a tunnel bored in clay and lined with concrete segments (in the 1960’s?), a vertical hole some 15m in diameter and 30m deep was created by the escaping water when the lining failed. Supply isolation took a significant length of time (Between one and two hours?)
Apart from the flooding, the road was severely damaged and closed until December 2006, with a temporary road by-pass around the pumping station being constructed for the duration.
The watercourse (the Datchet Common Brook – a designated ‘Main River’) at the foot of the reservoir embankment was filled with gravel from the hole by the escaping water which then backed up towards Datchet village centre. Repairs took years and were completed around April 2008. A heavily censored report from the EA is available on the JR website – The QM Reservoir problem – Atkins Report censored by the EA
The original story and many more images are located on the Jubilee River web site pages: The JR – Queen Mother Reservoir and a 2.4m diameter burst pipe – April 2006 – Near catastrophe – and then an Environment Agency cover-up!
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