Local Pressure Group Welcomes Review Of Thames Super Sewer
StoptheShaft urges this to take place as soon as possible as 2nd consultation period approaches
On Monday the BBC announced that Lord Selbourne will lead the team scrutinising the plans to build a controversial £3.6bn "super-sewer" under the River Thames. Lord Selbourne said:
"I welcome the opportunity to pose the questions that millions of water bill payers are starting to ask. The key question is whether this multi-billion pound project is the best solution to making the Thames cleaner or whether there are sensible alternatives that are cheaper, greener and less disruptive."
Sian Baxter Chairman of StoptheShaft has told Putney SW15.com that:
"STOPtheSHAFT welcomes such a review - if there is a cheaper, less disruptive, more sustainable but equally effective alternative solution then it's certainly worth investigating.
However, time is of the essence if EU deadlines for 2020 are going to be met. Therefore, any review into an alternative must be looked at urgently and any study would need to be completed by the end of the 2nd phase of consultation in January 2012.
Some of the West London CSOs, eg, Hammersmith, are highly polluting and discharge millions of cubic meters of sewage into the river each year and with the shorter tunnel they would not be connected. It is hard to see how 'diversion of run-off rainwater and sustainable drainage' could handle such polluting CSOs. Barn Elms CSO, on the other hand, discharges very small amounts in comparison (about 0.1% of overall discharges) and is much more likely to be solved using such alternative solutions.
Irrespective of whether the full tunnel or hybrid solution is adopted, our message of Brownfield not Greenfield still holds."
July 6, 2011