Background
The upper River Beane rises north of Cromer . It flows through Walkern and Aston and joins the Stevenage Brook before running through Watton-at-Stone. The lower Beane runs through the Woodhall Estate, Stapleford and Waterford, and then on to Hertford where it joins the River Lee.
It was a noted trout stream in the 1800s and properties with fishing rights sold at a premium. There was a water mill and watercress beds in Walkern and another mill at Watton-at-Stone. Older residents can remember swimming in the river; it was that deep in places. All this has vanished ; the mill in Watton-at-Stone has been demolished and the mill in Walkern has been converted into flats (the watercress beds remaining as a wet patch).
About 15 years ago, concerned residents in Aston noticed that the river had dried-up for long periods and decided to find out why. The river only flowed during the winter, whereas the adjoining Stevenage Brook appeared to have more water all year round. Other concerned residents of adjoining villages soon joined those from Aston and the River Beane Restoration Association (RBRA) was formed.
At that time the culprit for the long dry-periods was thought to be over-abstraction from the Whitehall Pump Station, which is licensed to take around 7 million gallons per day from the river for the Stevenage water supply.
|
Recent Past The National Rivers Authority (NRA), now part of the Environment Agency, chose the River Beane to be the subject of a study [i.e. the Alleviation of Low Flows (ALF) project] into low flows because it was one of the 10 worst rivers in the country. The NRA commissioned a programme of study, which included installing 9 measuring boreholes in the upper Beane valley. The RBRA have been taking readings from these boreholes for the last 10 years, and continue to do so on a monthly basis for the Environment Agency. |
|
The NRA concluded that the Whitehall Pump Station located near Aston was allowed to take too much water and no account had been taken of the environmental impacts when the licence was granted. The NRA proposed a solution and a programme was agreed in the late 1990s. This would close the Whitehall Pump Station and relocate the water supply point further down the catchment where it was thought the supply situation was more robust. This programme should have been completed by 2003, but was not implemented due to emerging concerns about the River Mimram.
There is a new plan to reduce water abstraction at Whitehall by 50% and take the rest from further down the catchment. Sites for trial boreholes have been selected near Stapleford for flow-testing by Three Valleys Water. If these tests are successful, then production boreholes will be sunk, but this is 1 to 2 years away.
Today
Since the latest strategy to reduce abstraction has been introduced, the East of England Plan has been published by the East of England Assembly (Go East) and the Upper Lee Catchment Management Plan has been published by the Environment Agency.
- The East of England Plan calls for massive housing development on an ambitious timetable, but does not identify funding or solutions for the necessary improvements to the infrastructure .
- The Upper Lee Catchment Management Plan recognises that there is no spare water ANYWHERE because the whole region is over abstracted or over licensed. They propose a plan of metering and reducing water leakage, but admit that it will fail to meet objectives in the 6-year target time scale.
- The Environment Agency has told the East of England assembly that there is not enough water available.
- The Environment Agency has said that development should not proceed until the water supply infrastructure problems are solved.
- Despite all of this, it appears that the Government intends to press ahead with their expansion plans regardless.
At present no one is taking ownership of this problem. The East of England assembly has come the nearest to understanding the whole problem, but appears to have insufficient authority. This is unlikely to result in taps running dry, but will result in further environmental degradation if something is not done.
The RBRA is worried that the development will proceed without proper infrastructure improvement. New planning regulations mean that the planners should consider sustainability, but there is a fear that it is unlikely that local planners will refuse permissions on the grounds of water shortages. It is considered likely that more and more water will be abstracted, meaning more and more environmental damage.
Solutions could involve importing water, building reservoirs, providing local sewage-treatment (instead of pumping sewage from the Beane Valley villages and Stevenage all the way to Rye Meads, South of Hertford), providing some element of water re-use in new developments etc. All of these have been raised as possible solutions, but obviously none are the remit of local planners or the local water company. The position is worsened because the water-supply company and the waste-water treatment company are not the same, so the possibility of coordinated thinking is reduced. This needs a strategic initiative, which is noticeable by its absence. Politicians need to be involved.
The RBRA decided to raise awareness of this small local problem (but one which is typical of the situation right across the South of England) by responding to the East of England plan, by producing a summary of its activities and informing MPs and the local Parish, District and Town Councils. There have been meetings with local MPs of the area and all are concerned with these quality-of-life issues.
The RBRA sees the need to separate the problem of the supply of drinking water and used-water treatment from the issue of the low-flow conditions in the upper River Beane.
In the medium term, the RBRA considers the only way of increasing flow in the upper reaches of the river is to have a recycle of treated-water from small scale Sewage Treatment Plants in the villages in the upper Beane Valley, or even Stevenage. This strategy could solve the problem.
The main strategy at this stage is to lobby the local MPs , namely Oliver Heald, Mark Prisk and Barbara Follett. (all of whom all support the objectives of the RBRA).
If you want to know more about the RBRA, please contact IanKnight on 01920 830448.