Plans to build a new reservoir in Cambridgeshire have taken another step forward. Anglian Water is planning to create the Fens Reservoir between Chatteris and Doddington.
The area has been identified as one of “several nationally strategic resource options” required to address the “deficits in future public water supply”. Anglian Water has submitted a planning application to Fenland District Council for part of the reservoir works.
The plans seek permission for the continued use of 29 monitoring boreholes in land north of Chatteris of the A142 and east of the A141 Isle of Ely Way in Chatteris. A borehole is a shaft to access underground sources such as water.
The “long-term” monitoring of the boreholes is important to the overall reservoir project. The applicant said the boreholes will help “understand the groundwater conditions in proximity to the location of the future Fens Reservoir”.
The plans said the boreholes will help to understand how the conditions respond longer term, while allowing for seasonal variation and external factors such as extreme weather events. It will also provide information on the effect proposed engineering works may have on the environment.
Anglian Water seeks to retain the boreholes for four years. It added: “Once the boreholes have provided sufficient information they shall be decommissioned and the ground at surface level reinstated to the satisfaction of the landowners.”
The Fens Reservoir is one of two proposed as nationally significant, with other plans to create a reservoir in Sleaford. Anglian Water has partnered with Cambridge Water for the Fens Reservoir.
It is hoped the reservoirs will improve water resources for more than three quarters of a million homes in some of England’s most water-stressed areas. The Fens Reservoir is set to supply 87 million litres a day to 250,000 homes and is hoped to be completed by 2036.