Why building first new reservoirs for decades isn’t smooth sailing

For as long as Jim Stagg has lived in the Vale of the White Horse, Thames Water has been trying to build a reservoir in his rural pocket of south Oxfordshire.

The retired photographer and his neighbours have been fighting for decades against the water company’s claims that flooding their local environment is necessary to ensure the increasingly drought-stricken southeast of England has enough water storage to cope with rising population and a changing climate.

So far, the water regulator and planning authorities have been on the side of the Nimbys in these national disputes, with no new drinking water reservoirs opened in England for the past 32 years.

Water companies in England have repeatedly submitted plans for reservoirs only to see them rejected by