Ministers can no longer say when the River Thames Scheme, meant to cut flood risk to 15,000 homes, will be built, months after promising an updated business case by the summer.
£104 million has been spent on development work so far, but at least three written answers this month have offered Surrey MPs no timetable at all.
In a written answer published on Tuesday, the environment minister Emma Hardy told Dr Ben Spencer, the Conservative MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, that the scheme ‘is currently undertaking a reset to ensure it remains affordable, deliverable and provides value for money’.
‘For this reason, a timetable is not available for the project,’ she said.
Dr Spencer had asked why the next stage of the scheme had not taken place. It was at least the third time this month that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had declined to give a timetable.
On 14 October, asked for the planned timescale and the key milestones for each remaining phase, Ms Hardy said only that the scheme was undertaking a reset. On 19 October Lincoln Jopp, the Conservative MP for Spelthorne, asked when the business case would be released. ‘A timeline is not available for the project,’ he was told.
The scheme covers the river between Egham and Teddington, which the Government describes as the largest area of undefended, developed floodplain in England. Homes and businesses in Staines, Chertsey and Shepperton were flooded in early 2014. The plan is for a new flood channel in two sections, through Runnymede and Spelthorne, with upgrades to the weirs at Sunbury, Molesey and Teddington. Defra says its main objective is to reduce the risk of flooding to 15,000 homes, 2,500 businesses and critical infrastructure.
Earlier this year the message was very different. In February Defra told MPs in a written answer that £104 million had been spent on development work and that the Environment Agency ‘will be bringing forward an updated business case this Summer’. That business case, the department said, would set out a revised timetable for the planning application, an updated cost assessment and any revised arrangements for delivery.
The project’s own website said in May that the aim was to submit the updated business case to Defra and the Treasury before the summer. The summer has come and gone. Ministers have not said whether the business case has been submitted, and the timetable it was meant to contain has not been published.
The scheme was not dreamed up by this Government. It was declared nationally significant infrastructure by the then Secretary of State in December 2020, under a Conservative government, and its design was developed by the Environment Agency and Surrey County Council over many years.
In late autumn 2024 the two sponsors commissioned a mid-project review, and most other work on the scheme was paused while it took place. According to the project’s website, the review confirmed that the planned design of a new flood channel and weir improvements remained the right approach.
But Labour is now the Government, and the scheme cannot go ahead without approval from Defra and the Treasury. The business case is also being rewritten to fit Defra’s new partnership funding policy for flood schemes, which took effect in April.
That leaves the questions a Conservative opposition will want answered. Has the updated business case been submitted to Defra and the Treasury? If it has, why can ministers not give a timetable? If it has not, why was the summer deadline missed? What is the scheme now expected to cost, and who will pay for it under the new funding rules?
Residents along the Lower Thames will also want to know whether the ‘reset’ is a delay, a redesign or the first step towards cutting the scheme back.
For now the official position is the one given in three answers in a fortnight. There is no date for the planning application, no date for construction and no updated cost for a scheme that has already cost £104 million to develop.
Featured image: The Swan Hotel at Staines-upon-Thames during the floods of February 2014. Marcin Cajzer (bayerberg), via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped.
