Short-term nightmare – long-term danger

It’s very clear that Thames Water’s proposals for Daly Way Green will destroy a much-loved local amenity space, and cause huge noise, mess and danger for hundreds of local residents, schoolchildren and visitors. But what could happen in the longer term?

SUBSIDENCE RISK: Thames Water’s hole in the ground will be 60 feet deep, and the construction involves
‘dewatering’ – sucking all the water out of the soil using pumps, to stop the excavation filling with water. Everyone knows that too little water in the ground can undermine property foundations and cause subsidence.

POOR MAINTENANCE: Thames Water have a terrible track-record for maintenance, e.g. pipe leakage. Very close to home, we have a very good example of how bad Thames Water really are – at the end of Wheeler Close, near the Tring Road, Thames Water installed a ‘balancing pond’ in the early 1990s, which is designed to fill with excess rainfall and then empty via pumps. As this picture (taken today) shows – the pumps don’t work, and the pond routinely over-fills. This has been reported to Thames Water on many occasions – but still they take no action. This is a small and simple installation compared to the Daly Way Green scheme – but they still can’t get it right. Pump failure of the new scheme means sewage flowing in the streets – it’s as simple as that.

EXPLOSION RISK: a large sewage storage shaft has the potential to fill with lethal methane gas, produced in the sewer network and natural underground sources. To then place electrical equipment and pumps inside the shaft which could trigger an explosion is madness to the extreme. Thames Water would of course say there is no risk of this, but methane explosions have happened before: in the Abbeystead Disaster of 1984, 16 people were killed in an explosion at a water pumping station (click here and here for details); in the Loscoe Explosion of 1986, a bungalow was destroyed by a methane explosion from a landfill site (click here for details of this and other methane explosion disasters). The fact that Thames Water think this is an acceptable development in a densely-packed residential area beggars belief.

Thames Water will of course tell us that all of these risks are very low, that we have nothing to worry about, and that they are thinking of the best interests of residents and the local community. The harsh truth is that THEY won’t be here in years to come to deal with the consequences of their outrageous plans – WE WILL.