The River Thames Scheme (RTS) is being delivered in partnership between the Environ-ment Agency and Surrey County Council. The Scheme is designed to unlock economic, health and environmental benefits for com-munities between Egham and Teddington.
The River Thames between Egham and Ted-dington runs through one of the largest area of populated but undefended flood plain in England. In addition to the towns and villages in this area, the landscape has been heavily shaped by major infrastructure and extensive mineral workings. This has resulted in an area in which many homes and businesses are at risk of flooding, within a landscape which suffers from visual barriers and physical con-straints which means the open space isn’t used to its full potential.
The RTS represents a new landscape-based approach to creating healthier, more resilient, and more sustainable communities by re-sponding to the challenges of flooding, im-proving access to green open spaces and sus-tainable travel routes, encouraging inclusive economic growth, and increasing biodiversi-ty.
The River Thames Scheme will consist of a new river channel in two sections through Runnymede and Spelthorne, totalling over five miles long. These will act as a new flow route for excess water when water levels in the River Thames rise too high. Additionally, improvements will be made to the Sunbury, Molesey and Teddington weirs. This includes installing more gates that can be opened when river levels rise and lowering the river bed downstream of the Desborough Cut.
The scheme will reduce the risk of flooding to homes, businesses, and infrastructure, while also providing habitat for wildlife and a new feature in the landscape for recreation. The channel will be flanked by new areas of pub-lic green open space, for recreation and spending time with nature. New footpaths and cycleways will run along the channel and through the new public spaces, linking differ-ent elements of the scheme with communities and providing better connections within and across the area. Areas of new and improved habitat for wildlife and nature recovery will connect with existing nature sites and wildlife corridors to provide a new nature recovery network along the length of the channel that supports even more biodiversity.
The goals that are going to be delivered in-clude:
• Reduce the risk of flooding for dwellings, businesses, and infrastructure
• Improve access to quality green open spac-es, connection with wildlife and more sustain-able travel network
• Create a network of high-quality habitat and achieve biodiversity net gain
• Facilitate sustainable and inclusive econom-ic growth
• Enable delivery and design that contribute to Environment Agency, Surrey County Council and partner climate goals relating to carbon use
During November and December of 2022, we were out consulting the public on our plans and asking for feedback on our proposals for the River Thames Scheme. We held ten face-to-face exhibition events and seven virtual events and spoke to over one thousand people with our technical experts on hand to answer any questions raised by the public.
During the first half of 2023 we will be report-ing back on the feedback received during the consultation. This report will summarise the feedback received and will be made available to the public once ready. This will be pub-lished on the River Thames Scheme website: www.riverthamesscheme.org.uk
As the River Thames Scheme moves towards its Development Consent Order, a further pub-lic consultation is planned. This further con-sultation, proposed in late 2023, will share the latest proposals which have evolved following feedback to the 2022 consultation and give communities another opportunity to feed into the proposals before the Development Consent Order is submitted.
If you wish to find out more about the River Thames Scheme, please visit our website: www.riverthamesscheme.org.uk. You can also sign up to receive our newsletters and be kept up to date with news, such as future consulta-tions.