Proposed new reservoir Broad Oak (Kent) (1 Viewer)

[John Cantelo]

I've lived in Canterbury for over 40 years & every few years the project to build a reservoir NE of the city at Broad Oak resurfaces. If plans had gone ahead in the 1970s then it would have been part of the local birding scene for decades. With such a history I'm not convinced that it'll actually happen even after the current drought (although the increase in housebuilding locally will only compound the water shortage in the county). It would certainly enliven local birding if it is built (although the scheduled date, 2032 seems optimistic). It may be less certain if it will be entirely good for birds since, as I recall, one worry was whether the abstraction of water would adversely impact the Fordwich-Westbere-Stodmarsh area. Be that as it may I thought people in Kent & beyond might be interested in reading the report from Kent Online
www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/huge-reservoir-planned-for-kent-to-combat-water-woes-271638/?fbclid=IwAR1RUqH-SnsbElx7rtvksx5qWowplO_WvhIGQ7sxyGwHUKdgGrQa0klLYxs

 

[delia todd]

Grrr... can't read it as I have an ad blocker!!

 

[Richard D]

I haven't walked that way in 30 years - used to be a nice walk from UKC to Sturry. A lot of Mesolithic flints were found in that area.

As you said it's been talked about for decades.

I think my only concern is it was well maintained small scale farmland and we're losing habitat for farmland birds in Kent at an alarming rate.

 

[John Cantelo]

For those with ad blockers ...​

Hopes new Kent reservoir to store billions of litres of water will be built near Canterbury by 2032​

An “urgently needed” reservoir capable of storing five billion litres of water is hoped to be built in Kent within the next decade.
South East Water bosses want to flood a sprawling expanse of farmland in Broad Oak, Canterbury, and have the site operational by 2032.

A map showing where the proposed reservoir would go

Calls for the long-mooted project to get underway have increased in recent weeks.
With water supply issues plaguing villages last month, and the impending introduction of a hose pipe ban, Kent’s need for greater storage capacity is greater than ever.
The envisaged reservoir at Broad Oak has long been on the cards, yet the plans - first drawn up 50 years ago - have failed to materialise.
Now, however, South East Water has issued a prospective timetable for the project.
It is set to launch a public consultation this autumn, before submitting a planning application for the site as early as 2024.

Lee Dance, the company’s head of water resources, told KentOnline: “We’re aware of the need to build a new reservoir in Kent and plans have been in the pipeline to build a new reservoir at Broad Oak since the 1970s.
“We already own the required land and we have been undertaking both environmental and engineering studies in recent years.
“The proposal includes building a new reservoir, which will provide at least a further 20 million litres of water per day, water treatment works and recreational facilities for the community to enjoy.
“Our current timeline is that a planning application will be made between 2024-26, followed by construction and filling the reservoir.
“We are hoping to deliver this project by 2032 and we will be launching our consultation on our latest draft water resource management plan – which includes the latest proposals for a new reservoir at Broad Oak – in November this year.”

Set to be of similar size to the 180-acre Ardingly Reservoir in West Sussex, Broad Oak will be one of the largest in the south east.
With the ability to store five billion litres of water, it will be able to cater for about 40,000 homes.

Bewl Water - the biggest reservoir in the south east - has the capacity for 31 billion litres.
Mr Dance added: “Our water resource management plan sets out how we will continue supplying top quality drinking water to our customers, while striking that delicate balance between protecting and enhancing the environment while serving a growing population."
South East Water last consulted with local people on the plans back in 2018, when it was suggested the reservoir could be built by 2030.

 

[delia todd]

Thanks John!!

 

[Stuart Goodwin]

Evening all.

This may get a bit niche, apologies in advance, but I grew up in the close proximity and have family who live in Broad Oak and the next village Sturry.

If, a big 50 years and counting if, the reservior is built it will be interesting to see the impact on the area. Certainly Sarre Penn (the stream that runs through the valley) isn’t large enough to fill the reservior on its own but water extraction could impact Stodmarsh SSSI/ Ramsar, which as house builders are currently finding, still has strong legal protection (although for how long?). Also, are they accounting for future house building? The amount of house building in the villages is huge. We are talking thousands of home‘s over the next couple of years. I can’t see it not happening as more and more water is drawn/ required from the aquifers.

From a birding perspective, apart from perhaps being deeper, I can’t see any difference to the current lakes formed from gravel extraction in the Stour Valley (the next valley across). I suspect the recreational facilites for the community will be a sailing club.

G*d I sound negative but east Kent will soon become the patio of England rather than the garden.

Regards
Victor Meldrew

 

[John Cantelo]

Evening all.

This may get a bit niche, apologies in advance, but I grew up in the close proximity and have family who live in Broad Oak and the next village Sturry.

If, a big 50 years and counting if, the reservior is built it will be interesting to see the impact on the area. Certainly Sarre Penn (the stream that runs through the valley) isn’t large enough to fill the reservior on its own but water extraction could impact Stodmarsh SSSI/ Ramsar, which as house builders are currently finding, still has strong legal protection (although for how long?). Also, are they accounting for future house building? The amount of house building in the villages is huge. We are talking thousands of home‘s over the next couple of years. I can’t see it not happening as more and more water is drawn/ required from the aquifers.

From a birding perspective, apart from perhaps being deeper, I can’t see any difference to the current lakes formed from gravel extraction in the Stour Valley (the next valley across). I suspect the recreational facilites for the community will be a sailing club.

G*d I sound negative but east Kent will soon become the patio of England rather than the garden.

Regards
Victor Meldrew

Niche it may be but interesting nonetheless. I taught at Sturry secondary school for over 20 years so quite possibly taught some of your relatives ...

 

[Stuart Goodwin]

Niche it may be but interesting nonetheless. I taught at Sturry secondary school for over 20 years so quite possibly taught some of your relatives ...

Hello John.

No, you only had to put up with me!

Regards
Stuart Goodwin (Frank Montgomery circa 1982 - 1989)

 

[John Cantelo]

Hello John.

No, you only had to put up with me!

Regards
Stuart Goodwin (Frank Montgomery circa 1982 - 1989)

I should really have looked at the name first, Stuart!

 

[Richard D]

Evening all.

This may get a bit niche, apologies in advance, but I grew up in the close proximity and have family who live in Broad Oak and the next village Sturry.

If, a big 50 years and counting if, the reservior is built it will be interesting to see the impact on the area. Certainly Sarre Penn (the stream that runs through the valley) isn’t large enough to fill the reservior on its own but water extraction could impact Stodmarsh SSSI/ Ramsar, which as house builders are currently finding, still has strong legal protection (although for how long?). Also, are they accounting for future house building? The amount of house building in the villages is huge. We are talking thousands of home‘s over the next couple of years. I can’t see it not happening as more and more water is drawn/ required from the aquifers.

From a birding perspective, apart from perhaps being deeper, I can’t see any difference to the current lakes formed from gravel extraction in the Stour Valley (the next valley across). I suspect the recreational facilites for the community will be a sailing club.

G*d I sound negative but east Kent will soon become the patio of England rather than the garden.

Regards
Victor Meldrew

Stuart, I grew up in Sturry and still have family there (from your school years we're of an age, although I went to the Chaucer so John didn't teach me, and I met him through the Canterbury RSPB group).

I heard the new development on the old Greenfields site off Sturry Hill had to have it's own waste water treatment built in order to not further overwhelm Stodmarsh, but I hadn't considered the filling of the resevoir. I agree I can't see the Sarre Penn being an adequate source for that size of reservoir.

The size of the housing development in that area is going to have a huge impact - I think most of the woodland north of the railway line is going to be built on, and whilst the bridge over the flood meadow might not have that much of an impact, if it does cut through Old Park...

 

[Stuart Goodwin]

Stuart, I grew up in Sturry and still have family there (from your school years we're of an age, although I went to the Chaucer so John didn't teach me, and I met him through the Canterbury RSPB group).

I heard the new development on the old Greenfields site off Sturry Hill had to have it's own waste water treatment built in order to not further overwhelm Stodmarsh, but I hadn't considered the filling of the resevoir. I agree I can't see the Sarre Penn being an adequate source for that size of reservoir.

The size of the housing development in that area is going to have a huge impact - I think most of the woodland north of the railway line is going to be built on, and whilst the bridge over the flood meadow might not have that much of an impact, if it does cut through Old Park...

Morning Richard.

A small world. Did you go to Sturry infants (Mrs Hadlow) then the primary school.

Anyway, I get the need for the bridge. The placement isn’t ideal but KCC don’t have any real alternatives. The only concern is that that the area is a flood plain and that area does flood (funnily enough) when we get wet winters. I’m expecting to hear at some stage that the cricket ground and Brett’s land will become housing. What then for the wet woodland/ carr. Is this protected as it must be a rare habitat?

As for the bypass, I struggle to see that this anything but a political excercise. It will only take you half way round Canterbury (to Bridge from memory) then most traffic will trundle back towards Canterbury to head to Ashford. Having worked in Ashford whilst living in Sturry, I quickly learnt to use the Thanet Way to avoid Canterbury. Put in place a congestion charge to encourage drivers to use the existing park & ride. Oh wait, the Sturry location has been mothballed!

Regards
Stuart

 

[dantheman]

"Set to be of similar size to the 180-acre Ardingly Reservoir in West Sussex, Broad Oak will be one of the largest in the south east.
With the ability to store five billion litres of water, it will be able to cater for about 40,000 homes."

Bewl Water - the biggest reservoir in the south east - has the capacity for 31 billion litres.
Mr Dance added: “Our water resource management plan sets out how we will continue supplying top quality drinking water to our customers, while striking that delicate balance between protecting and enhancing the environment while serving a growing population."
South East Water last consulted with local people on the plans back in 2018, when it was suggested the reservoir could be built by 2030.

Just spent a little time after surfacing this morning thinking randomly about all this in a back-of-envelope-kind of way as seems interesting ;-)

Assume the water boards know what they are talking about, but according to google, yes, if the average water usage by a household in the UK is 150 cubic metres of water per annum that works out basically.

But not based on water-efficient housing/usage. And just as water storage.

Average Kent rainfall per annum - 24 inches (that could be a lot less eg this year). So 0.6 cubic meters of rainfall falling on 1 square metre of land. Average floor plan of a new house eg 60m2, but allowing for many being multiple storeys, so a footprint of 40m2? (Couldn't see average house footprint size). So potential rainfall falling on roof of 1 house = 40 x 0.6 = 24 cubic metres.

Could probably double this or more if allow for rainwater collection from driveways/pavements/roads. (Can't recall if this runoff water would normally be collected?)

How far is the new/existing housing from the proposed reservoir precisely?

Probably simplistic, but the whole thing seems a bit off to me, and an alternative approach would work. Or a reservoir of that size would/could supply many more homes/businesses.

Water metering/compost toilets/water recycling within the home. Also the UK uses the same drinking quality water for flushing toilets etc, and a lot of inefficiency in doing so.


...

 

[dantheman]

Also just recalled I saw a random youtube video about a 'new' method of desalination/getting drinking water from seawater a few weeks back.

(Didn't come across the original video but think this is similar). Not sure if the principles can be scaled up or not. 1 litre of water produced using 20w of power, would take c 1.5 hours in their suitcase sized example).

With relatively passive solar/windfarm farm on the coast freshwater could be produced and piped as opposed to using water extraction. Not a huge fan of high tech (low tech is better) to solve humanities problems but something along these lines could be a useful factor in certain circumstances perhaps.

(Some of these circumstances would be in times of maximum sunshine (ie drought) spare solar capacity could be diverted to desalination)

(Water recyling/less usage etc as per my previous post even better of course).

 

[Farnboro John]

Just spent a little time after surfacing this morning thinking randomly about all this in a back-of-envelope-kind of way as seems interesting ;-)

Assume the water boards know what they are talking about, but according to google, yes, if the average water usage by a household in the UK is 150 cubic metres of water per annum that works out basically.

But not based on water-efficient housing/usage. And just as water storage.

Average Kent rainfall per annum - 24 inches (that could be a lot less eg this year). So 0.6 cubic meters of rainfall falling on 1 square metre of land. Average floor plan of a new house eg 60m2, but allowing for many being multiple storeys, so a footprint of 40m2? (Couldn't see average house footprint size). So potential rainfall falling on roof of 1 house = 40 x 0.6 = 24 cubic metres.

Could probably double this or more if allow for rainwater collection from driveways/pavements/roads. (Can't recall if this runoff water would normally be collected?)

How far is the new/existing housing from the proposed reservoir precisely?

Probably simplistic, but the whole thing seems a bit off to me, and an alternative approach would work. Or a reservoir of that size would/could supply many more homes/businesses.

Water metering/compost toilets/water recycling within the home. Also the UK uses the same drinking quality water for flushing toilets etc, and a lot of inefficiency in doing so.


...

However, in overall economics, the public health benefits of using drinking quality water for all domestic purposes, plus the savings in infrastructure, are immense.

John

 

[dantheman]

However, in overall economics, the public health benefits of using drinking quality water for all domestic purposes, plus the savings in infrastructure, are immense.

John

Indeed. My random thoughts may be discussed/argued/debunked elsewhere.

However, not sure if quite a paradigm shift in thinking is required, but seems like there are problems (especially in eg SE England) which requiring thinking about in a different way ...

 

[Farnboro John]

Indeed. My random thoughts may be discussed/argued/debunked elsewhere.

However, not sure if quite a paradigm shift in thinking is required, but seems like there are problems (especially in eg SE England) which requiring thinking about in a different way ...

I agree with that. I've said a number of times the Government does Ponzi scheme economics but its now apparent that you can't (just as in Nature) ram people into an area beyond its carrying capacity and it is senseless to try.

Plus, whatever the carrying capacity is now in terms of water access it's only going to get worse over the next century, not better: so plans need to be based on realistic projections and not current conditions.

John

 

[Richard D]

Morning Richard.

A small world. Did you go to Sturry infants (Mrs Hadlow) then the primary school.

Anyway, I get the need for the bridge. The placement isn’t ideal but KCC don’t have any real alternatives. The only concern is that that the area is a flood plain and that area does flood (funnily enough) when we get wet winters. I’m expecting to hear at some stage that the cricket ground and Brett’s land will become housing. What then for the wet woodland/ carr. Is this protected as it must be a rare habitat?

As for the bypass, I struggle to see that this anything but a political excercise. It will only take you half way round Canterbury (to Bridge from memory) then most traffic will trundle back towards Canterbury to head to Ashford. Having worked in Ashford whilst living in Sturry, I quickly learnt to use the Thanet Way to avoid Canterbury. Put in place a congestion charge to encourage drivers to use the existing park & ride. Oh wait, the Sturry location has been mothballed!

Regards
Stuart

Yes - Mrs Hadlow (I avoided her infamous golden slipper) at the old infants (my infant teachers were Miss Evans then Mrs Rogers) before going up to the junior school (Mr Payne I think was the head). We must have been near contemporaries.

Canterbury Council is building much more housing than the government mandated minimum, whilst Swale (I'm now living in Faversham) is trying to build the minimum and the fields are still disappearing.


.

 

[Stuart Goodwin]

Yes - Mrs Hadlow (I avoided her infamous golden slipper) at the old infants (my infant teachers were Miss Evans then Mrs Rogers) before going up to the junior school (Mr Payne I think was the head). We must have been near contemporaries.

Canterbury Council is building much more housing than the government mandated minimum, whilst Swale (I'm now living in Faversham) is trying to build the minimum and the fields are still disappearing.


.

Evening.

Ah yes the golden slipper. I also avoided it. My teachers were Miss Clayden and Miss Carpenter. For primary, I only remember Miss Bazzard as the head.

From memory, and I could be wrong (won’t be the first time), councils get revenue from house building. Perhaps Canterbury is more aggressively building in part due to their reported budget deficit. As for Swale (I’m living in Sittingbourne), I think Faversham is catching up with Sittingbourne & Iwade on the house building front.

Regarding the Broak Oak reservoir, i wonder what area it will serve. On a local birding Facebook page , I notice that someone has said about water extraction from Plucks Glutter. It is below Stodmarsh, removing the impact on the SSSI area but that would cost a lot to pipe the water back. The other issue is how close will the reservoir be to the current tip.

Still a few years before plans are seemingly finalised. In the meantime we have the solar farm at Graveney to watch to see how that goes with more regular high tide flooding.

Regards
Stuart

 

[Richard D]

I can't remember when Mr Payne retired and Miss Bazzard took over, but do remember her. I think my sister was taught by Miss Carpenter, possibly Miss Clayden before that.

Yes Canterbury City Council isn't in great financial shape, and I wouldn't be surprised by revenue patching.

Faversham's Sewage Works is now pretty much at capacity - Boughton and Dunkirk was plumbed in a few years back. The 'accidental' discharges don't seem to worry the waders and gulls attacted to the outlet though.

Plucks Gutter seems an awfully long distance for water extraction but Stodmarsh must surely prevent extraction up stream.

The obvious answer with Graveney would have been to restore it to flood meadow, which was the Enviroment Agencies original plan. To be honest from a wildlife point of view once you get beyond the reserve strip the farmland isn't a great asset - the ditches get Reed and Cetti's Warblers as well as a good number of Reed Buntings, but the fields only really attract Corvids and Starlings and the odd gamebird. The contrast with reserve is very noticeable. I'm personally not against solar farms per se - the small one at Abbeyfields on the outskirts of Faversham is no worse than the acres of poly-tunnels, but the scale of the Graveney development is something else...

Anyway, getting off topic!

Take care,

Richard