Plans for a new reservoir on the Norfolk Broads have been approved - but it will offer little help for flood-hit communities.
The Broads Authority (BA) has given the go-ahead to plans for a 15.3 acre site – roughly the size of eight football pitches – near the village of Ludham to be turned into a water storage facility.
The scheme will sit on a bend in the River Ant, south of the How Hill estate, in an “internationally important and highly sensitive wetland environment”.
During a meeting, the BA planning committee asked if the scheme would help with flooding in the surrounding area.
However, a speaker on behalf of the application said the amount of water being taken from the Ant would provide a negligible benefit.
He said: “The amounts we are taking is about 1,500 cubic metres a day, the only pump data I’m aware of at the moment is on the upper Bure where they are pumping 500,000 cubic metres a day.
“So, I don’t think it’s going to have much impact.”
Instead, the reservoir will take water from the river during the winter months while levels are at their highest, which local farmers can then store and use in the summer.
The proposal will take over the whole field except for a four-metre-high bund around the edge, which will be grass-covered and used by grazing sheep.
The plans had to be submitted after the Environment Agency announced major changes to water abstraction in June 2021, reducing the volume and timings of when it can be taken.
Farmers and local businesses - who have endured drought conditions in recent summers - have had to develop more sustainable plans.
Adam Varley, a local councillor at North Norfolk District Council, spoke in favour of the scheme saying it would “only prove to have a positive impact on our farming community” and would lead the way for future similar applications.
Harry Blathwayt, the chair of the planning committee, said: “As a local resident who walks past this field once or twice a week, I’ve known it as a lovely field for many years, but I absolutely understand the need for this.”
It was unanimously approved.
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