When Joseph Bazalgette proposed building a vast network of sewers under London’s streets, he did not need to hold endless rounds of consultation or spend thousands of hours responding to objections by Nimbys. The Metropolitan Board of Works accepted his grand plan with alacrity in 1859 and the network was largely in place six years later.
The board was under intense pressure to prevent a repeat of the “Great Stink” of the hot summer of 1858, when the stench of raw sewage in open drains caused Parliament to be suspended. Cholera epidemics caused by contaminated water had killed 25,000 Londoners in the previous decade.
Thames Water invokes the spirit of Bazalgette in making its case for spending £3.6 billion to build the 20-mile Thames Tunnel, in order to capture most of the 39 million tonnes of raw sewage that still pours into the river in a typical year. The company will launch a second public consultation in September and it intends to apply for planning permission next year for a project that would add £65 a year, every year from 2018, to the average water bill for 5.5 million households.
Thousands of riverside residents, who will be affected by noisy construction sites and heavy lorries for up to seven years, have objected to the plan. They argue that it is too expensive and exaggerates the scale of the problem.
The company’s effort to win over the Nimbys has been hampered by the fact that no one now dies because of sewage discharges into the Thames, which occur 50 times a year. Nor is there much odour, unless you happen to be passing one of the river’s 57 combined sewer overflows during heavy rain, when Bazalgette’s system is overwhelmed by a combination of rainwater and sewage.
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Anglers are in favour of the scheme because a single spill can kill thousands of fish, as happened one weekend last month when 500,000 tonnes of sewage poured into the Thames in West London. Rowers are also keen on the giant tunnel because every month at least one of their number develops an illness that may have been caused by contact with raw sewage.
The Environment Agency supports the Thames Tunnel but it did not help the case for it in October last year, when it boasted of winning an international conservation award for cleaning up the river. The agency described the Thames as “the beauty queen of the planet’s waterways”.
A long-term solution to sewage pollution of the Thames is clearly needed, especially because climate change is likely to result in more intense downpours and therefore more spills. But the estimated cost of the Thames Tunnel has more than doubled since 2005, when it was endorsed by the Thames Tideway Strategic Study.
Hammersmith & Fulham Council, which has taken the side of the Nimbys, argues that the final cost is likely to be £5 billion. The council’s credibility on the issue has been undermined by its attempts to scare its own residents with claims that they would be left with a “50 foot high stink pipe” rising from the tunnel, yet Thames Water’s claims should also be treated with caution, because it could profit handsomely from the tunnel.
With so much of our money at stake, it is hard to dismiss the council’s call for a review of potentially cheaper alternatives. A 2006 report commissioned by Ofwat recommended a shorter tunnel, costing half as much. The risk of spillages could also be reduced by building more stormwater storage ponds and stopping residents from overloading drains by concreting over their gardens.
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The stench of competing vested interests hangs over this debate. The air needs to be cleared by a new scientific assessment of the costs and benefits.