The River Wey teeters on the brink of an ecological disaster, as a decade-long campaign to address a critical threat remains unresolved.

A key sewage pipe near London Road, Liphook, carrying most of the foul water from Liphook and Bramshott to the Lindford treatment plant, is at serious risk due to precarious trees growing in a nearby Conservation Area. These trees could topple onto the pipe, causing catastrophic damage to the water way.

County Councillor Debbie Curnow-Ford said: “I am determined these trees are taken down before we have an ecological disaster in the River Wey.”

The River Wey Trust first raised the alarm in 2014 and has been campaigning tirelessly ever since to have the trees removed. In 2020, their fears were realised when Storm Dennis swept through the South East. As predicted, a fallen tree fractured the main sewer in London Road.

Thames Water deployed tanker lorries upstream to pump sewage away from the river. But due to the slow flow rate, the River Wey Trust estimates that only 50 per cent of the sewage was removed, with the remainder flowing out of the broken pipe and into the river.

At the time, Thames Water committed to urgently clearing the remaining trees that posed a risk to this critical sewer.

But as of January 2024, these trees still remain standing.

“I pray during every storm that the trees will stay standing – and so will the sewer,” said Roger Miller, Trustee of the River Wey Trust, who has been at the head of the campaign to protect the river.

So why the delays? According to Roger, it has taken time to get Thames Water to take responsibility for the trees. Since the trees are located on privately owned land, Thames Water first had to obtain the landowner's permission for removal. With permission now granted, planning consent from East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) is still required due to the Conservation Area designation.

The River Wey Trust attributes further delays to an overwhelming backlog of planning applications at EHDC.

EHDC issued the following statement: “As the submitted application is for a tree in a Conservation Area, EHDC has six weeks to decide whether to make a Tree Preservation Order or not. In this case, and in accordance with the regulations, the local authority can decide not to make a TPO and allow the six-week period to expire, at which point the proposed work may go ahead as long as it is carried out within two years from the date of the notice. It is likely that EHDC will still issue a no-objection notice, but there is no delay to the applicants should they wish to undertake the works.”

For now, the trees remain standing, leaving the vital sewer pipe and the surrounding ecosystem at risk with each passing storm. Thames Water has yet to comment on why the removal process has taken so long or to provide a timeline for when the work might finally be completed.