Press Release

Mayor sets out case against a desalination plant for London
26-4-2006   216

Today (April 26 2006) the Mayor of London made his submission to the forthcoming Public Inquiry into Thames Water’s plans for a £200million desalination plant at Beckton. He is calling on Thames Water to improve its record on fixing water leaks instead of building an energy guzzling desalination plant, which will increase London’s contribution to climate change.

The Mayor states that if Thames Water fixes leaks, reduces the demand for water through water saving devices and further educates customers about water conservation there would be no need to build a desalination plant.

The Mayor argues that it is wasteful to extract water from the River Thames and use energy to desalinate it for drinking, when 915 million litres of clean, purified water is lost through leakage under London’s streets every single day.

London is already feeling the effects of climate change. It is now widely accepted that the sea level is rising, by about 6mm a year at high tide in the London area meaning that London is increasingly at risk from tidal flooding. Other potential impacts of climate change include higher water demand and lower river flows in summer.  The Mayor believes that a desalination plant is the wrong answer to London’s growing water shortages. It will use more energy and therefore make a greater contribution to global warming than the alternative of Thames Water managing its supply network more efficiently. It would mean that London was responding to climate change with a solution that adds to climate change.

The desalination plant will not help London’s current lack of water.  If granted planning permission, it would not be operational until around 2009/10.

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said: 'We are already facing the effects of climate change which is putting a strain on our water resources. We cannot fight climate change by building a desalination plant, which will worsen the problem by pumping 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

‘The proposals for a desalination plant are akin to pouring water into a sieve. I want to send out a clear message that as Mayor of London, I will not back new developments which contribute further to the problem of climate change.’

Witnesses appearing at the Public Inquiry on the Mayor’s behalf will make the case that Thames Water is not performing as well as it should be and that there are viable alternatives to a desalination plant. If Thames Water worked to best practice in demand, supply and leakage management, it would be able to save seven times the capacity of the proposed desalination plant by 2029.

Thames Water’s poor performance on leakage has meant that OFWAT has required them to reduce the level of leakage to specific target levels and  has placed them under specific reporting measures for failing thus far to achieve adequate performance.

Notes to Editors

1. To view the Mayor of London’s submission to the Public Inquiry in full go to www.london.gov.uk/mayor/planning/desalination-beckton.jsp The Mayor will be speaking at the Public Inquiry which will begin on Tuesday 23rd May 2006 at 10 a.m. For further information about the public inquiry please contact Matthew Wells at ODPM press office on 020 7944 4613. Email: Matthew.wells@odpm.gsi.gov.uk
2. Actual leakage in Thames Water’s area for the year 2004/5 was 915 million litres of water every day, this is 10,590 litres of water every second. OFWAT has set Thames Water a leakage target of 582 million litres per day
3.  If agreed the proposed desalination plant would be in Beckton in the London Borough of Newham. The Public Inquiry will be at held at City Airport at the Meridian Business Centre,which is in the terminal building on the first floor.

For media enquiries please call Nicola Dillon on 020 7983 4755 or Richard Brookes on 020 7983 6550 in the Mayor’s Press Office
For out of hours media enquiries please call 020 7983 4000.
For non-media enquiries please call the Public Liaison Unit on 020 7983 4100.

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