EA confirms closure of Chesham Pumping Station
The Environment Agency confirmed that it has revoked Affinity Water’s licence to abstract water from Chesham Pumping station earlier this month, ending months of uncertainty over the future of the site.
Affinity Water voluntarily turned off their pumps at the site in 2020 to improve flows in the River Chess following years of campaigning by local community groups including the River Chess Association (RCA) and the Chilterns Chalk Streams Project (CCSP), and extensive investigations between 2015 & 2019 that demonstrated a link between low flows in the river and water abstraction in the Chesham area (see our previous story on this here). Affinity Water’s voluntary action, which drew widespread praise from local community groups, followed months of inaction by the Environment Agency to identify a solution to address the issue.
In July 2024 however, the Environment Agency announced that it had issued a section 20 notice to Affinity Water to request that it restart abstraction at the site. The Agency confirmed that this was as a precautionary measure to address a potential increased risk of groundwater flooding identified by their regional groundwater model (in 2021).
The CCSP, RCA and Chiltern Society, led stakeholder calls for this decision to be reversed, arguing both that there was a lack of solid evidence to show that the risk of groundwater flooding had increased due to the closure, and the detrimental impact that it would have on flows in the river. Following a series of meetings with the Agency over the summer and a period of consideration, the EA confirmed in October 2024 that they had agreed a pause on the proposal with Affinity Water and in March 2025 confirmed their intention to revoke Affinity Water’s licence to abstract water at Chesham Pumping Station using its powers under Section 52 of the Water Resources Act 1991. The news from the Agency this month that this process is now complete brings to an end nearly 150 years of water abstraction at the site.
The CCSP Project Manager said, “This is welcome news not only for the River Chess but also for all the local groups and individuals who have striven for so long to see the river’s flow restored. It is to the Environment Agency’s credit that they have listened to local stakeholder’s concerns and have reconsidered their approach to this matter. To see nearly two decades of effort by the CCSP and the local community reversed would have been heart-breaking and would have put abstraction reductions planned for other chalk streams at risk. I am glad that sense has prevailed.”
With the closure of Chesham pumping station this month, abstraction has now ceased at both of Affinity Water’s sites in the upper Chess catchment. Thames Water’s Pumping Station near Hawridge is due to be closed by March 2030.