Campaigners today vowed to step up their fight against London’s £4 billion supersewer following publication of a 50,000-page planning application.
Thames Water set out detailed plans for the tunnel from Acton to Abbey Mills. It involves 24 building sites along the Thames and could force hundreds of Londoners to move home.
The project, which will add £80 a year to water bills, cleared a big hurdle yesterday as the Thames Water document was validated by the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol, which hears evidence on major infrastructure proposals.
Objectors will be able to register at the Thames Tideway Tunnel website to voice concerns at a series of public meetings beginning in September.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson and Communities Secretary Eric Pickles will rule on the scheme in autumn next year. Work will start in 2015 and be completed by 2023.
Thames Water says the Tideway Tunnel must be built as the Victorian sewer cannot cope with the city’s growing population. It will store untreated storm water in the tunnel and flush it east to create a cleaner Thames.
The main opposition group, Clean Thames Now and Always, has proposed resurfacing London roads with porous asphalt as an alternative to the sewer.
Save Your Riverside chairwoman Rita Cruise O’Brien said: “Thames Water has engaged in a consultation process with many people but they have not listened to the alternatives and the local impact is going to be terrible.”
Member Andrew Or said: “We have hired some legal people to help us look through the 50,000-page document to see if there are any holes.”
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Phil Stride, head of Thames Tideway Tunnel, said: “We made particular efforts to make the documentation easy for the public to navigate.”
