Ground-breaking ceremony for the new Havant Thicket Reservoir in Hampshire on Friday 13th September 2024
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00:00Hi, my name is Bob Taylor, I'm the CEO of Portsmouth Water and we're here at the
00:05Havant Thicket Reservoir site to celebrate the start of the main
00:08construction work. We call it a ground-breaking ceremony.
00:14So when did work actually begin on the site to prepare?
00:16The preparation work has been ongoing, the enabling works as we call it, for probably about two years now
00:20with making access roads, clearing the site, moving away all of the flora and
00:26fauna. So we've done all of that now and now we're actually building the reservoir permanent.
00:31And how long will it take to build?
00:33It'll probably take about three or four years to build. We have some difficulties
00:38with the ground conditions that we're working our way through at the moment
00:42but it's about that scale of duration. Then it could take another three years
00:46to actually fill up with water.
00:48And once it's complete, how large is it going to be and how much water is going to be needed?
00:52It's about 8,700 million litres in this reservoir, which is a little bit hard to imagine.
01:00But it's about number 50 in the UK, so it's not a massive reservoir like, say, Keelder up in the North East.
01:06It's about the 50th largest and there are others in the region, in this region, that are larger.
01:11So it's sort of a medium size.
01:13Tell us why it's so important to create this reservoir here?
01:18Well, in the water industry we're all facing real pressures at the moment from climate change.
01:23That means we're experiencing weather patterns that are extreme, much more extreme than we've experienced historically.
01:30We also have to deal with the growth in population and providing water for new customers.
01:36But we also have to recognise the needs of the environment and making sure that the water we take
01:41is sustainable to allow the environment to flourish.
01:45And this is an environmentally driven project.
01:47This is a project that's designed to allow our partners, Southern Water,
01:51to take less water from the chalk streams in Hampshire, the Test and the Itchin,
01:56so that they can recover their biodiversity and come back to the state that they were in originally.
02:03So the way this works is that the water we provide them will allow them not to take water from those sources.
02:10It's a substitute, particularly in drought conditions.
02:14I'm Lawrence Gosden. I'm Chief Executive Officer of Southern Water.
02:17And we are at Havant Thicket celebrating the start of construction on this incredible reservoir behind me, the first in 30 years.
02:25And why is this construction so important to Southern Water?
02:28Well, the stark truth is, is when we look forward and do our planning according to what climate change
02:35and how it's going to impact the country in the southeast and look at the projections for population growth,
02:41is in 10 years' time there just won't be enough water in the environment to be able to sustain this part of the region,
02:46which is already designated as water stress.
02:49Now, we can stay ahead of that by building the reservoir that we started in collaboration with Portsmouth Water
02:55and the associated water recycling plant, which will top up the reservoir in times of severe drought.
03:01By acting now, we can stay ahead of climate change.
03:04Can you explain the relationship you have with Portsmouth Water?
03:09This is a momentous collaboration between us and Portsmouth Water.
03:12So, Portsmouth are building the reservoir and we are providing the money through our customers' bills to get that reservoir built.
03:20And that's because the water will be used to then feed Southern Water's customers throughout the whole of Hampshire,
03:27ensuring that supply is resilient for decades to come.
03:31Obviously, there's been some local concern about intoxication coming into the reservoir and the treated wastewater.
03:38Can you explain a little bit about how that works and how that is made safe before you touch the reservoir?
03:44I'm really sensitive to people's concerns and we want to work with people to keep explaining and talking through and showing the technology.
03:52But in truth, this is technology that's used around the world.
03:56Famously, in Australia, after the 10-year drought, they fully embraced using recycled water as a necessary part of being resilient to drought in the future.
04:06It's the same technology principle that is used in desalination and it's using these membranes and reverse osmosis.
04:13And in fact, it cleans the water so purely that actually all that is pretty much left is hydrogen and oxygen.
04:21So that means it actually doesn't taste like water because it even strips the minerals out of water.
04:26So you have to reintroduce minerals to make it taste and feel like tap water.
04:30So it almost cleans it too much, but it's incredibly robust technology that's used around the world.