In parallel with the current consultation for its Water Resources Management Plan, Southern Water is heavily publicising the story that construction has officially started on its grand new project, the first new reservoir to be built in the UK for thirty years – The Havant Thicket Reservoir.
The detail behind this tells a different story, relating to Portsmouth Water, the smaller independent water supply company based in Havant. Following years of consultation and engagement with local businesses and communities, it was Portsmouth Water who developed and submitted the current plans for the new reservoir, awarded planning consent by Havant Borough Council in 2021 for the storage of its natural chalk spring water sourced from its own springs around Havant and Bedhampton.
The document referenced below contains a detailed 12 page timeline together with a supporting appendix, which tells the bigger story. Southern Water’s interest in Portsmouth Water’s reservoir has fluctuated over that period and you are encouraged to open the document – by clicking the image below – and read the detail and the notes it contains. You might find some of the content surprising.
Far from being open and honest about its plans, the timeline details how Southern Water’s documents in 2020 (see page 3) were heavily redacted making it difficult for the public to follow what the company was proposing, even if they had been aware of them. In September 2021 (see page 5) when its Fawley desalination proposal was rejected, the company made a ‘material change’ to its plan, selecting effluent recycling via Havant Thicket Reservoir, an option which had not even been included in its 2019 Plan.
Despite this Southern Water did not review all of the potential options and the company did not follow the required statutory consultation process, a legal requirement of the Water Industry Act. In each consultation that has followed Southern Water have failed to make it clear that Portsmouth Water customers will receive the recycled water, or engage fully with all customers who will receive the recycled effluent in their drinking water supply.
Southern Water’s unwelcome takeover of Portsmouth Water’s Havant Thicket Reservoir project stems from its own inability to launch its own desalination project at Fawley, coupled with Portsmouth Water’s success in securing local planning approval for the new reservoir.
[Last updated, 20-10-2024]
Havant Matters 