The GMB Congress Conference has dismissed “notions of a market for water for households as irrelevant” and called on “all concerned to recognise that water is a natural monopoly.”

The comments come in a resolution by the GMB Congress calling on the government and Thames Water to use the opportunity of the current restoration of the Cotswolds canals for them to be made ready to be used to transfer water from the Craig Goch reservoir in Plymlimmon mountain range in mid Wales to the Thames.

According to the union, this could lead to the restoration of the Cotswold canals being funded by the water companies as well as the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The GMB said the proposal would help to source enough water for the growing population of London and the South East of England into the rest of this century through to 2100.

Mick Ainsley, GMB Regional Officer said:

“People want to know their water supply is safe and are fed up with excuses as to why moving water around the country to where it’s needed can’t happen, it’s time to make it happen. We need to be putting the National interest before private profits.”

The GMB said that during the drought in 2012, it had made the public aware that 25 ‘bulk water storage facilities’ in the south-east had closed since the 1980s, including sites at Stoke Newington, Hornsey and Barnes. A reservoir at Cheshunt was sold to developers with plans for 249 flats and houses to be built, while water storage facility at Enfield was sold to a house builder.

At the time the union called on Thames Water, the Environment Agency and Ofwat ‘to account for allowing parts of this nation to run short of water’.”

"No shortage of water in Britain" but lack of capacity to move from plentiful regions to water-scarce areas 

The resolution says that due to long term weather cycles London and parts of the South East and East of England will experience periods of low rainfall that will result in reservoirs running short of water. This is likely to happen every 20 years or so.

“Conference also recognises that there is no shortage of water in Britain but there is a lack of capacity to get the water from where it is plentiful to areas where it can be scarce from time to time.“

The resolution also refers to calls by the GMB during the last drought to “put back on the table plans from the old Water Resources Board, developed in the 1970s to move water from the west of Britain to those parts where it is scarce at times of low rainfall.”

According to the GMB, the Water Resources Board had identified about fifty potential storage developments including new reservoirs, expansion of old reservoirs and more effective ways of managing existing reservoirs and aquifiers.

This included a proposed scheme to enlarge the Craig Goch reservoir in Plymlimmon mountain range in mid Wales and to move the water via the rivers Wye and Severn to be pumped into the Thames via the Sapperton tunnel in the Cotswolds canals at times of low rainfall.

The resolution says:

“Conference calls on the CEC and National Secretary for the Water Industry to get the Government and the Labour Shadow team to recognise the need for a long-term practical plan to deal with periodic water shortages in London and parts of East of England and the South East.”

“There is no current plan in place as no action was taken on the problem since the last drought. “