Further Thames Water consultation events have been announced today regarding the company 's proposed water recycling scheme in Teddington.

Following pressure from local residents, MPs and councillors, the privatised water company has announced two further consultation events on their controversial drought scheme to abstract water from the Thames at Teddington and replace it with treated sewage from Mogden - which will take place in February and March.

The decision comes on the back of an initial consultation event held at Old Town Hall in Richmond last month which was unable to cope with the number of people keen to make their voices heard which led to residents queuing around the block.

Nub News revealed details of the scheme last month https://richmond.nub.news/news/local-news/plan-to-drain-water-from-thames-and-replace-it-with-treated-effluent-166175

Subsequently, we published an image of what the abstraction point will look like on the banks of the Thames - https://teddington.nub.news/news/local-news/revealed-concrete-structures-could-be-built-on-banks-of-thames-for-controversial-drought-scheme-168620

Richmond borough's two MP's, Munira Wilson and Sarah Olney, pushed hard for further consultation events to be scheduled by Thames Water.

Richmond Park MP, Sarah Olney, during the initial consultation

Commenting on today's decision, Twickenham MP Ms Wilson said: "The first consultation event in Richmond demonstrated the strength of local feeling over these plans. Given their regular untreated sewage discharges at Mogden and failure to fix local leaks, community trust in Thames Water is at an all time low. 

"It is therefore vital that river users and members of our community have the opportunity to scrutinise these plans. I am pleased that Thames Water have responded to my calls for further public events, including a Q&A session and an opportunity to attend on the Twickenham side of the river."

Thames Water added: "Our water supply is under severe pressure and we must plan ahead to build future resilience for the benefit of our customers and the environment.

"We have recently published our draft Water Resources Management Plan and launched a public consultation on it.

"It explains how we will meet the water resource challenge through a combination of fixing leaks more rapidly, finding ways to reduce the amount of water we all use and by investing in new infrastructure including a new river abstraction near Teddington Lock, a new reservoir in Oxfordshire, and water transfers between regions and across the South East."

Details of the further consultation events are as followed:

• An online webinar and Q&A on Monday, 27 February between 19.00 and 20.30. 
• A community information event at York House in Twickenham on Friday, 3 March between 2pm - 8pm.

Local residents can register to attend these events on Thames Water's website here.