Transcript

KEN BURGIN:

We’re standing at Saul Junction, and right in front of us here is the Gloucester and Sharpness canal. And that runs from Gloucester down to Sharpness, and at the moment, water flows down this canal and is used to help supply Bristol with its water. On the other side, we’ve got the start of the Cotswold canals, and they run from the Gloucester and Sharpness canal, right away over to the river Thames in the east, distance about 36 miles.

Now the idea is to use some of the water that is here – which is supplied by the Severn and from rivers coming down the Cotswold hills – and pump it up to the top of the canal and then to flow it by gravity down the rest of the canal to the Thames and the thirsty southeast.

INTERVIEWER:

Brilliant. Very, very good. It seems like such a good idea, why wouldn’t we just jump at that? Give us the arguments for and against, if you like – probably mainly for. But give us some of the arguments around the idea of this scheme?

KEN BURGIN:

Well OK, for this scheme to work, it’s important that the water is going to be available to make it work. If there’s not the water available, then there are limitations –

INTERVIEWER:

That’s water in the Severn? Because you’re putting it on the Severn.

KEN BURGIN:

Water in the Severn. So the amount of water that’s available, that has to be checked. The mixing of the water from here – although it’s very good, the water here, I have to say – and that of the Thames, that needs to be checked to make sure it’s not going to cause any ecological difficulties or chemical problems, so that needs to be checked.

The cost of any water supply scheme is important. It’s looking quite a good one, from a cost point of view. It’s certainly a lot cheaper than, for instance, building a reservoir instead, by probably a factor of three or four. So cost, it looks like it will meet that.

So it is going into the detail and comparing it with other solutions. If it’s comparative in cost, if the water’s available, there are some huge upsides in restoring the canal. Because it’s not just then a conduit for getting water to London, you’ve got all the recreational benefits and the ecological benefits, and the conservation benefits, and the heritage protection benefits. All of those are added on top as an additional bonus.