Business leaders and unions in London have thrown their weight behind a £4 billion “supersewer”, despite local opposition and the prospect of higher water bills for householders.
The 7-metre wide tunnel stretching 15 miles from West London to Docklands is a critically important infrastructure scheme that will end sewage discharges into the Thames and lead to the creation of about 9,000 jobs in the capital, MPs will be told.
In a report to be launched in Parliament today London First, the business organisation, and the TUC will urge the Government to proceed with the scheme, which George Osborne has signalled is one of the country’s most important infrastructure projects.
The report states that the timing of the Thames Tunnel’s construction, from 2016, makes it more of a priority because that is when thousands of workers building the Crossrail project will become surplus to requirements.
“The tunnel would create thousands of decent jobs when we need them most,” Frances O’Grady, the deputy-general secretary of the TUC, said. “There are real gains to be made, not just in terms of the 4,000 jobs and apprenticeships created in construction, engineering and maintenance, but thousands more in the supply chain.”
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The report requests that at least 20 per cent of the workforce should be from the local community and that the project ensures the employment and development of engineering apprentices. David Leam, the policy director at London First, said that the sewerage system would finally meet the demands of 21st-century London.
The scheme has been on the drawing board at Thames Water for nearly two decades. About 400 professionals from it and the consulting engineer CH2M Hill are now working on a final scheme after planning victories that have ruled that Eric Pickles, the Secretary for Communities and Local Government, will have the last say on the location of four tunnels, rather than local councils.
Plans to begin tunnelling at the western end in densely populated Fulham, where family homes routinely change hands for more than £1 million, have caused local outrage. The Stop Shafting Fulham campaign says that the cost to welfare of a construction scheme on a site the size of six football pitches over six years is intolerable. Down the river, past Tower Bridge in Southwark, locals are also campaigning to prevent works at Chambers Wharf close to two schools. Simon Hughes, the local Liberal Democrat MP, has pledged his support to a campaign to review the plans.
Thames Water admits that “no plan is ever going to be disruption-free” and concedes that Londoners will end up paying for the scheme — it is understood that water bills around the capital will increase by more than a fifth.
The project is not scheduled to be completed until 2023.
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Down the pan
39m
tonnes of raw sewage is flushed into the Thames in a typical year
450
Amount of times this would fill the Royal Albert Hall
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£339
Average water bill in London
£80
Predicted annual increase in bills from 2014 if the plan goes ahead
Source: Times research