Water safety pledge for multi-billion pound Fenland reservoir
The reservoir is planned to provide up to 87 million litres of water a day
A water company has reassured people in Cambridgeshire they will be kept safe if a multi-billion pound reservoir is built.
Biodiversity, wildlife and funding are some concerns raised from a first public consultation about joint plans by Anglian Water and Cambridge Water to build the reservoir near the Fenland villages of Doddington and Wimblington.
The structure, which will cost between £1-2 billion in total, aims to supply up to 87 million litres of water a day and around 250,000 homes.
“Water safety is key to mind (and) education is going to be important,” said Sarah McGhie of Anglian Water.
“We can reassure people that where there’s a large volume of water, we will be acting responsibly making sure people are safe to use it and everything is patrolled in the way that it should be.
“We see what the region is concerned about, so let’s go away, take their thoughts, put it into the plan and (see) how can we resolve some of these issues.”
Figures from The Water Incident Database (WAID) show four people lost their lives in Cambridgeshire's waterways alone in 2022.
In the WAID data, there were 226 accidental fatalities in the UK in 2022, with 105 of them during June, July and August.
Anglian Water and Cambridge Water aim to start building the reservoir between 2029-31 and complete the five-square kilometre project by 2041.
But the plans found that the eastern region receives a third less rainfall than the UK average, so serving demand for more water is a key part of the reservoir.
“What this is about is resilience,” said Ms McGhie.
“As well as the driest region in the UK, we’re also the fastest growing in the UK; the infrastructure has to keep up, so we have to make sure there’s enough water for decades to come.”