Lib Dem pulled up over past opposition to reservoir

If there’s one thing pretty much everyone agrees with, it’s that British politicians haven’t been doing much long-term planning. A clear example of this is the following from Lib Dems MP Layla Moran:

It is hard to overstate the selfishness and short-sightedness of NIMBYism.

Here’s Lib Dem MP Layla Moran objecting to plans for a mega reservoir in her constituency in 2022.

Her constituency is now officially in drought because we lack enough places to store water. https://t.co/HiMXkIG4Le

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— James Hanson (@jhansonradio) August 18, 2026

NIMBYism = Lib Dems-ism

The acronym ‘NIMBY’ stands for ‘not in my backyard’. It’s a descriptor for people who want things to be built and developed, just so long as they’re not built and developed near them.

In Britain, NIMBYs have incredible power to prevent projects moving ahead during the planning process. On the one hand, having the ability to object to local mega projects is a good thing – especially when it comes to AI data centres. On the other hand, China has built “29,800 miles of high-speed train lines — about 70 per cent of the global total” – in the time it took us to half build HS1.

In the clip above, the Lib Dems Moran says:

Well, the main thing is that the water companies haven’t adequately, in my view, reassured and shown that this is absolutely necessary. You know, to put it into context, this is an enormous reservoir… 25 metres high, made of concrete. That’s three double-decker buses, one on top of the other. It’s pretty much the footprint of Abingdon itself. It’s enormous.

And there’s two things that they haven’t done. The first is proven that their population projections are correct. There are big discrepancies internationally, in what the ONS… say, and what they say they’re going to be. And we think that’s a big problem.

But the second is the environmental impact itself. We fully appreciate that we need to do something with our water supply. Absolutely. The question is, is this monstrous design the right thing? I don’t think they’ve made the case.

After the summer we’ve had, you’re no doubt salivating at the thought of that enormous reservoir. Although climate change has indeed accelerated, we knew that summers like this were coming in 2022 when Moran said the above. The Lib Dems have form too, with Nick Clegg having shot down carbon-free nuclear projects in 2010 because they wouldn’t come online until 2021:

Nick Clegg opposing nuclear energy investment in 2010, when interest rates were at record lows because it would simply take too long to materialise

pic.twitter.com/zxC26skevv https://t.co/iqbGl1EtXH

— camilo (@AscendedYield) June 26, 2025

Short termism

At this point, it really is up to us to punish politicians for this sort of short-term thinking. We need to renationalise key utilities; we need to improve and expand our national infrastructure, and we need to double down on renewables and nuclear. It’s going to take some time to make these things happen, but we’ll be kicking ourselves ten years from now if we don’t.

Featured image via Mark Pack

By Willem Moore

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