EU has Britain under the sewage pump
The British government is supporting a “seriously flawed and short sighted” infrastructure spend in a hasty bid to avoid fines for breaching EU environment directives, according to the Hammersmith and Fulham Council.
By Elizabeth Pearson
- The Thames nightlife from above, E.Pearson 2009 -
Thames Water has been given the green light by Westminster to start planning for a £2.2 billion tunnel scheme designed to prevent the Bazalgette drainage system discharging raw sewage into the Thames when it reaches capacity.
But the western London borough says throwing money at the problem won’t make it disappear.
“The scheme is about water quality improvements to avoid EU fines,” the council said in an executive summary of their position.
“The tunnel is the government’s response to meeting the requirements of the EU’s Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive- [we] believe this to be a seriously flawed and short-sighted option that needs review.”
“In the future we shall need flexible and adaptable approaches to drainage and water storage that can be developed incrementally to respond to climate change as our knowledge and understanding of the impacts develop. The tunnel is not an adaptable nor flexible solution but rather locks us in to a single drainage solution for the next century and beyond,” the council said.
“The environmental benefits for the scheme will be outweighed by the carbon footprint that the construction and ongoing maintenance of the tunnel will create.”
London’s Consumer Council for Water said the government was clearly spooked by the threat of legal action, after the Thames failed to meet water quality guidelines handed down in Brussels.
- The Thames at low tide in the city’s east, E.Pearson 2009 -
“They are terrified of infraction proceedings form the EU, the government was offered the tunnels solution and said ‘that’s it!’ and wrote to Thames saying, ‘let’s get on with it’,” Chairman David Bland said.
“The last thing the British government wants is to be paying a fine and their subservience to Brussels means they will do anything to try and stop themselves being fined. If we were back in the days of the industrial revolution, the government would just decide to spend the money necessary to do what was required. We’re not in that position now. We’re in the position where thanks to 40 years of incompetent government we are effectively without resources and therefore the national budget just wouldn’t take it,” Mr Bland said.
“It’s an example of British bureaucracy not working. We are a dysfunctional country and it’s really embarrassing.”
Thames Water will have to raise commodity bills to fund the super sewer, should it go ahead. But the Consumer Council for Water says that’s not good enough.
“The European Union and the directive making body do not expect water consumers to pay for major environmental schemes like this whereas the UK has no other way of charging this, except general taxation. Putting [the cost] on water users is not what the EU legislation intends but it’s the way the cookie’s crumbled in the UK. Though water is not the most expensive commodity in life, it doubles in price with no apparent change in service, there are going to be questions,” he said.
But Thames Water maintains the tideway tunnels will set Britain well on its way to meeting Europe’s new green legislation.
“That’s why over the next five years we’re expanding all the five main sewage works along the Thames in London and building the Lee Tunnel – all steps to clean up the river,” said Senior Press Officer Simon Evans.
“By 2020 the much larger Thames Tunnel, running 20 miles from West London to Beckton, is set to have been built. This will take sewage from CSOs away from the river for treatment. The net result will be a cleaner, healthier Thames, which will comply with the EU’s Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, of which Britain is currently in breach.”
