Image description: Someone holding a black biro pen to fill out a survey on a blue clipboard. Image credit: Phil Hearing on Unsplash

Almost nine in 10 people support the building of a new £6.6bn reservoir in Oxfordshire according to a new survey shared by Thames Water.

Thames Water said 89% of 2,004 adults surveyed across the South East view the White Horse Reservoir, formerly known as the South East Strategic Reservoir Option, near Abingdon, as “important to safeguarding future water supplies”. Thames Water said the research had been conducted by the agency Accent, which collected the data between May and June.

The proposed reservoir would secure the water supply for 15 million people in the south east of England, including customers of Thames Water, Affinity Water and Southern Water. Plans for the reservoir progressed to a planning application stage in May and if approved by the government, water will be available for use from 2040. Thames Water also says that the reservoir would create more than 1,000 new jobs during its construction.

It follows four record-breaking heatwaves in 2026 and the driest July for England and Wales on record, with almost three-quarters of England now in drought. Leonie Dubois, delivery director at Thames Water, said the support for the plans shown in the survey was “incredibly encouraging”.

8,000 people have signed a petition against the development

As per the BBC, The Chairman of the Group Against Reservoir Development (GARD) Derek Stork said its petition opposing the reservoir’s development had 8,000 signatures that were “representative of people’s views” rather than the selected sample. Commenting on the issues caused by heatwaves and drought, Stork said fixing leaks should be “the first priority” as a lot of water stored underground was leaking “at an appalling rate”.

He said transferring water from the wetter areas of the country was another solution, which had been implemented by other countries with drought problems such as the UAE and Qatar, and that people should also “stop using so much water”.

Stork said they would not object to “building a reservoir like Farmoor [in Oxfordshire] to temporarily hold water back”.

The most recent £6.6bn cost prediction for the reservoir has increased almost six-fold since an early estimate of £1.2bn.