Why the reservoir is needed

Water is vital to health and wellbeing, to the economic prosperity of the East of England, and to maintaining a thriving natural environment that we can all enjoy.

Yet we face growing challenges to supply, from population growth in our region and a changing climate. To meet these challenges, we all have to play our part in balancing the needs of society, business, and the environment to enable a sustainable future.

We’re already working on new strategic pipelines to move water from wetter to drier parts of our region, installing smart meters in customers’ homes, and driving down leakage.

While all the investments we’re making today will help to keep taps running, the available supply will fall well below the demand for water unless we plan for future resources now.

The proposed new reservoir in the Fens has been identified as a large-scale investment in new water resources that we need and will play a critical role in securing water supply long into the future.

Reservoirs provide a level of resilience, volume of water, and environmental opportunities that are not provided by other resource options such as desalination or water reuse. They take excess river water in winter, when flows are at their highest, and store it for use in dry summers, when water is more scarce.

This enables us to make the most of wet weather to then service periods of dry weather. It also reduces the reliance on ground water sources, which in turn enables ground water recovery, such as to chalk streams.

When we looked at where we might best build reservoirs across our broader region, we identified rivers in both Lincolnshire and the Fens areas as having enough water surplus in the winter.

Providing two large new reservoirs, one in each area, would give sufficient water supply to enable resilience to future droughts, while protecting our most sensitive environments.

Together, the two reservoirs will make the most of the available resources and provide water to local communities and businesses across our region, including in Cambridgeshire.

View our proposals