Recently you published a letter stating that the water meadow at Poulton, which has been offered to the people of Marlborough, would be ‘almost permanently’ flooded.
Two separate groundwater model studies, one by WS Atkins and one by ARK’s technical advisor John Lawson, show that the effect of shutting off the Ogbourne abstraction will be to increase river levels in the Og by about 3cm in winter and less than 1cm in summer.
This will deliver critical environmental benefits, leaving the river flowing for longer each year, and increasing flow in the river by about 15 million litres per day in winter, and four million litres per day in summer, but it is not true that the meadow will be permanently flooded. A fuller explanation, including the flow height curve for the Poulton gauging station, is on www.riverkennet.org.
Charlotte Hitchmough, Director, Action for the River Kennet, Manton.
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