Untruths

Doing the dirty on Oxfordshire (and Swindon)

Abi-Res will supply treated water to parts of Hampshire via a new Water Treatment Works (at Abingdon) and a long pipeline to Southern Water. Otherwise, SESRO will discharge untreated water to be abstracted at existing Thames-side treatment works ... mainly in London. There are no such treatment works in Oxfordshire.

No water from Abi-Res will go to the Swindon-Oxford (SWOX) water resource zone. The idea that SESRO is for SWOX customers is a lie. If the Severn Thames Transfer scheme is commissioned later, this will supply water by pipeline from the Severn at Deerhurst to the Thames at Culham. Just more water for London and none for Oxfordshire.

Thames Water say they will build a pipeline from SESRO to Farmoor to allow water to be treated at Farmoor and added into the SWOX system. But the pipeline is not part of SESRO. Like HS2 North, it's something promised that never gets built.

• Leonie Dubois, HS2 Ltd's Head of Consultation and Engagement, said (11 Oct 2018): HS2 is coming to the north and it will reap significant benefits as a result. High speed rail will play a crucial role in rebalancing Britain's economy; driving business growth, stimulating investment and creating jobs right across the country.

• Leonie Dubois, Head of Engagement at Thames Water, Abingdon reservoir: Your questions answered, BBC Radio Oxford (12 Nov 2025) was asked: Will other counties benefit more from the reservoir than Oxfordshire? Her answer: Oxfordshire will benefit from it. There will be local water provided from the reservoir, but there is also this huge, amazing new place being created ... it's a big environmental experiment, where we're putting in place these news wildlife corridors that over time will mature and become really exciting from a biodiversity point of view, and that's all locally-based that people can enjoy.

Leader of the pack

Big investors like shiny assets delivered quickly

In September 2025, after ten years in post, she is set to retire. Perhaps this explains the snappily titled but rough-around-the-edges critique Reservoir Underdogs: Unlocking regulatory challenges to delivering new reservoirs.

Tracy wants objectors to reservoir schemes to be swept aside and planning approval further accelerated. She advocates creation of a single agency to champion the delivery of new reservoirs, arguing: Past infrastructure programmes show that dedicated delivery bodies can succeed where fragmented systems fail. A clear example is the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), established by the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 and jointly overseen by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London, and the London Development Agency. The ODA was granted full statutory planning powers, control over land assembly, and independent funding authority to deliver the London 2012 Olympic Park and associated infrastructure. With a single accountable body coordinating across government, utilities, transport, and construction, the ODA delivered one of the UK's most complex infrastructure programmes on time and within budget.

To mention just four errors in her analogy:

• The London 2012 Olympics was a strong product
• The relevant authorities were all based in London: the city set to gain/suffer from the Olympics, with close access to power-brokers in & outside Government
• Yes, the ODA delivered on time and on budget overall but the water-retaining bit tripled in cost
• The legacy of the infrastructure delivered was less successful than promised

Cost of 2012 Olympic pool triples

The east London centre will cost £242m, not the £75m quoted in London's winning bid, despite a reduction in its size.

[That flexible unit of volume so beloved by editors: the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Anything to avoid S/hard maths.]

Hidden feedback

• 1598 responses [were] excluded from [the] Gate 3 Report

• Overwhelmingly negative stakeholder response [has been] hidden.

I have explored this by the simple expedient of asking SESRO for a copy of my own submission in the form in which it was made available to Arup. Hitherto, I have held Arup Water in high esteem. [A good company with some really thoughtful engineers and hydrologists. They gave me interesting & important work on the Water of Leith flood alleviation scheme in 2002. While never a funder of DWRconsult thereafter, relationships remained good. I declined a potential advisory role offered in 2013.]

I eventually got a response from SESRO but one which ducked my questions. When pressed by return — perhaps in a fit of pre-Christmas goodwill/pique — TW's Engagement and Consultation Manager finally gave some clear answers:

• All responses to our non-statutory consultation, including yours, were shared with our technical partners.

• All responses were shared verbatim, with any personal data redacted.

I have yet to see a copy of my response to the NSC in the form that TW shared with Arup. I picked up a hint at the in-person community information event held in Wantage on 26 November 2025 (as part of the Statutory Consultation) that submissions by members of the public had been anonymised to comply with GDPR before passing them to a third party. Was my submission made available to the Joint Venture but in a form where coherent comment had been garbled on the pretext that it was necessary to anonymise my authorship?

I am told — no personal experience whatsoever — that large companies learned how to defend against inconvenient requests under the Freedom Of Information Act. But using GDPR — which is intended to protect me not them — to torpedo intelligent comment would have been a new low.

Water companies employ many professionals. For example, as a CIWEM member I am expected to follow Codes of Ethics and Conduct: one of which is never act illegally, fraudulently, deceitfully or dishonestly. To do so would be a Gross Dereliction of Professional Responsibility.

2025 hospeipe ban in SWOX water resource zone

[Watch this space. I don't yet know. Thames Water's presentation to the British Hydrological Society's South East Region (19 Nov 2025) webinar on the 2025 drought is yet to appear on BHS's YouTube site. Neither the lead author nor SESRO has replied to my request for a copy. It was a really good presentation. Perhaps it revealed too much information.]