Member News
By Jonathan Evans MP - 5th July 2010
Jonathan Evans MP writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his adjournment debate on government policy on reservoirs.
For the past 35 years, the Reservoirs Act has provided a robust procedure for maintaining the safety of British reservoirs.
The legislation requires all a-class reservoirs to be inspected every ten years by an independent engineer drawn from a panel compiled by the secretary of state at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Independence means not being in the employment of the owner of the reservoir, who is free to select any panel engineer.
Once a panel engineer proposes further action, those measures become mandatory, and a supervising engineer, drawn from the Defra panel, must be appointed by the reservoir owner and given responsibility for carrying them out in accordance with the original recommendations. If the inspecting engineer makes inappropriate safety recommendations, the reservoir owner can have the issue referred to a referee under section 19 of the Reservoirs Act.
This is a process which was devised to give strong powers to maintain reservoir safety, with appropriate review powers to the reservoir owner. But the legislation and its method of enforcement may be operating to actually undermine safety in the case of Llanishen reservoir in Cardiff and bring about the destruction of the reservoir itself.
Llanishen reservoir was built between 1884 and 1886 to supply water to Cardiff, but it has not been used for water supply for over 30 years. The local Council lease the reservoir for sailing training, and the area has multiple protections as an SSSI, an SINC and the reservoir itself has been designated by the National Assembly for Wales as a structure of important historic and architectural importance.
The reservoir owners wish to redevelop the land for over 300 houses and flats, and for the past 8 years multiple planning applications have been put forward and appeals made by the reservoir owners. These planning powers however are devolved to the National Assembly and are merely background and context to the events which give rise to my debate.
The reservoir was inspected under the Reservoirs Act in 2004, and passed as safe. The next statutory inspection was therefore not due until 2014. However, the reservoir owner brought forward the inspection by 6 years, and changed the inspecting engineer drawn from DEFRA's panel. This engineer has suggested that the owners took this decision not in the interests of safety, but in anticipation of change in the use of the reservoir.
The inspecting engineer undertook his inspection in 2008 and recommended that a full examination of pipework should be undertaken in the interests of safety. To achieve this, he has declared that the reservoir must be fully drained. As the reservoir is filled solely by rainfall, if it is drained ,it will take a decade for the reservoir to be refilled, and major damage may be caused to the integrity of the whole structure in the meantime. This inspecting engineer's recommendation has been challenged both by the two Defra panel engineers one working for the local residents group and the other for the Environment Agency, but under the legislation, the right to refer to a referee appears to be exclusively granted to the owners of the reservoir.
In the meantime, the Environment Agency as enforcement authority under the Reservoirs Act is obliged to serve notice on the reservoir owners insisting on these works being undertaken, even though their own Defra panel engineer has warned that these works will compromise the safety of the reservoir itself.
The local newspaper -the South Wales Echo - has run a major campaign urging the reservoir owners parent company a major US corporation to intervene. The company which ultimately owns the reservoir is Pennsylvania Power and Light, whose chairman President and ceo James Miller boasts on his website that 'at PPL doing the right thing comes naturally'. The paper's readers were urged to write to Miller therefore urging him to do the right thing. He failed to respond.
Laws that have been used to maintain the safety of our reservoirs are bringing about the opposite effect in my constituency, and an important historic landmark, recognised as being of national importance, is being vandalised.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.