Kingston Green Party has shared its objections to Thames Water's Teddington Direct River Abstraction (TDRA) project and is asking locals to also share their objections via the company's current statutory consultation, which closes on Tuesday, 26 August.

The party states that Thames Water " MUST take account of ANY responses made, not just those made via their feedback form", and that it agrees with local campaign group, Save Our Lands and River (SOLAR), "that a response in the form of an email or letter allows us to reject this project in its entirety". 

It added: "We urge residents to register their protest."

The party's objections are as follows:

The plan would mean the continuous sewage discharge all year round, not just at times of drought

Thames Water says TDRA will only be used when there's a serious drought, however, treated sewage discharge will continue all year round albeit at a minimum rate, because the system needs a constant "sweetening" flow and would end up releasing far more sewage than the amount of water it removes.

The treated sewage contains harmful pollutants

Thames Water calls its discharge "highly treated," but it won't remove tiny contaminants like PFAs ("forever chemicals"), microplastics, pharmaceutical leftovers, or certain bacteria and viruses. These pollutants are known to damage ecosystems and may harm people who swim or paddle in the river.

The Thames here already has "poor" ecological and bacterial status

In 2022, the Environment Agency assessed the Thames near Teddington Weir and gave it a poor rating, meaning many harmful pollutants were detected. Water testing in May 2024, undertaken by local boat clubs, showed the bacteria status of the river was "poor" three out of four times tested. Adding more treated sewage will likely make this worse.

Construction will cause massive disruption and wreck parks and green spaces

Thames Water plans to build eight vertical access shafts (each about the size of half a football pitch) in places like Ham Lands, Moormead Park, and Richmond riverside and a tunnel to carry treated sewage to an outlet at Ham Lands. Local areas like Ham Lands are officially nature reserves with rare plants and fungi. They are places where people walk and play. The construction could permanently harm these open spaces and their wildlife habitats.

Thames Water cannot be trusted

Thames Water has a record of sewage leaks and financial mismanagement. They have lost public trust through raw sewage spills, rate hikes, and heavy debt. Could it be that the TDRA scheme is just a short term fix to build something they can borrow money against, rather than a real solution?

There are better alternatives to TDRA

Instead of pumping sewage, Thames Water should fix broken pipes fast and get people to use less water. That means smart meters, public education, and better building rules. These steps reduce pressure on supply and don't hurt the environment. In addition, there are other schemes like the Beckton or Mogden Reuse Schemes, where treated water is cleaned to a higher standard and reused as supply water, not just for drought relief, which would offer better, scalable and longer term solutions to tackling weather extremes.

In short: TDRA is not just a "drought back-up" plan, it's a risky, expensive and environmentally damaging project that treats the Thames as a sewage dump and ignores better, greener solutions. For the health of the river, local people, wildlife, and our planet, we strongly oppose it.

In response to the objections, a Thames Water spokesperson said:  "Local communities have our absolute assurance that no sewage will enter the River Thames through our Teddington Direct River Abstraction Project (TDRA). It is physically impossible by design.  

"This nationally significant infrastructure project will work by abstracting water from the River Thames upstream of Teddington Weir and transferring it to our existing Lee Valley reservoirs to become drinking water. We'll replenish the river with clean highly treated water, protecting river levels and the local environment.  

"It's critical that we progress this project to secure water supply for millions of Londoners during drought. Without action we forecast a shortfall of 1 billion litres of water every day by 2050.  

"Leakage is also at its lowest ever level on our network, down 13.2% since 2020, but we know we have more work to do. As part of our plan to secure future water supply we've committed to halving leakage by 2050 and helping our customers reduce their water use. 

"However, this alone won't be enough, we need to invest in new sources of water. Our proposed Teddington Direct River Abstraction project will protect Londoners' water supply during periods of drought, providing up to 75 million litres of water each day." 

 Feedback on the consultation can be submitted in one of the following ways: 

• By filling in the online feedback form, which can be found on the consultation website.
• Emailing the dedicated consultation response email address at [email protected] 
• Filling in one of Thames Water's printed feedback forms available at the events or at one of the various locations in the community (details can be found on the project website) and posting it free of charge to FREEPOST TDRA CONSULTATION.  
• Writing free of charge at FREEPOST TDRA CONSULTATION 

 All responses must be received in writing by 11.59pm on Tuesday, 26 August 2025.