ARK campaigners are going to Parliament next month to put pressure on the government to take urgent action to protect the endangered River Kennet that flows through Marlborough.
Action for the River Kennet – it is one of only three precious chalk streams in the country – is to give evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee on March 7.
The cross-party committee, chaired by Tory MP Anne McIntosh, is undertaking an inquiry into the Government’s new policy for the future of water resources in the UK, set out in its White Paper Water for Life.
The invitation to attend follows ARK’s written evidence and in appearing before MPs there will be no lack of outspoken concern for a halt to the excessive extraction of water from the river by Thames Water to supply the people of Swindon.
“While we welcome the Government’s new policy in principle as it will give a better balance to protecting the environment, we will be pressing for more urgent action to address problems like the Kennet’s,” ARK chairman Geoffrey Findley told Marlborough News Online.
“We will make sure that politicians hear how damaging the over-abstraction can be for a chalk stream like the River Kennet, and will show how policy could be changed to protect vulnerable rivers.”
ARK, a registered charity, has been campaigning for 20 years for water abstraction – it feeds residents of Marlborough too – to be reduced.
ARK director Charlotte Hitchmough protested: “It is very difficult to get existing abstraction licenses changed, even when there is good evidence to show that they cause environmental damage.”
“We hope Government will take this opportunity to change the rules. That would help the Kennet and other rivers like it.”
This potential new legislation comes at a critical time for water resources across much of England. In the last 18 months the Kennet Valley has had less rainfall and a drier river even than during the drought of 1976.
“Unless we get very heavy rainfall in the next two months a drought this summer is almost inevitable,” Charlotte pointed out.
She will be representing ARK at the select committee together with Geoffrey Findley and possibly a third member, John Lawson.
Information about Action for the River Kennet is available at www.riverkennet.org
