The water regulator Ofwat recently announced a public consultation in proposition four 'undertakings' for Thames Water to meet due to their most recent financial problems. 

The consultation closes tomorrow, Friday 16 August, at 5pm and opposers of Thames Water's Teddington Direct River Abstraction (DRA) project, Save Our Land and River (SOLAR), have encouraged supporters of the group to provide their own individual responses.

The campaign group said: "The Teddington DRA scheme is projected to cost £330m but this figure does not include borrowing costs. At least 85% of their costs would have to be covered by loans, adding hundreds of millions of pounds to the quoted cost.

"Thames Water's focus should be on its core job of general sewage treatment - get that right first, don't make things more complex and risky with unnecessary bolt ons like the proposed Teddington DRA."

Many people oppose Thames Water's Teddington Direct River Abstraction project (Image: Tilly O'Brien)

The project plans to build a river abstraction shaft upstream of Teddington Weir and to replace the abstracted water with an equal amount of recycled water from new tertiary treatment facilities located in Mogden Sewage by 2033.

Thames Water lost its two investment grade credit ratings, classifying its bonds as junk at the end of July 2024.

It is vital that all water companies maintain these ratings as part of their licence to operate. 

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Therefore, Ofwat have proposed that Thames Water should commit to:

• The appointment of an independent Monitor to report on the company's progress, including against its transformation plan. The independent Monitor will report back to Ofwat frequently and be entitled to access to company information;
• Developing and delivering a suitable operational business plan to achieve turnaround;
• Taking the steps required to deliver an equity raise;
• New non-executive director board appointments.

SOLAR supports Ofwat's recommendations but still want Thames water to disband their Teddington DRA project altogether.

 It welcomes new appointments to Thames Water's board but believes that more needs to be done.  

SOLAR said: ""We welcome the appointment of an independent monitor for Thames Water and new appointments to its board" but that "Local residents should take the opportunity to inform Ofwat that the Teddington DRA scheme should be thrown out."

SOLAR have asked their supporters to help with this by contributing to the Ofwat consultation by emailing their views to [email protected] by 5pm tomorrow.

Thames Water said: "We regard all untreated discharges as unacceptable, even when they are permitted, and are taking action to improve the health of our rivers as a key area of focus and investment.

"We are encouraged that Ofwat recognises that in order to resolve the issues identified any redress needs to be deliverable, affordable and financeable."

"We will continue to engage with Ofwat and will respond to the consultation in due course," they continued.

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