Community, Education and Leisure

As well as securing drinking water supplies and creating new homes for wildlife, the reservoir has the potential to become a new leisure and community focus point for Havant.

We’ve been working hard to involve the local community in every stage of this exciting opportunity, such as the public consultation we ran during May and June 2020. During this, hundreds of people were able to find out about our updated plans and have their say – feedback that helped shape the planning applications we submitted to Havant Borough Council and East Hampshire District Council.

In August 2020, we published our ‘You said, we did’ report, summarising what people told us during the consultation and how we’re responding to the points raised. The reservoir planning application documents are available to view on the councils’ planning web-pages, plus you can download our Havant Thicket Reservoir Design & Access Statement.

As well as visiting this website, you can stay in touch with the reservoir project’s progress in the following ways

• Following us on social media via our reservoir Facebook page or updates on X
• Sign up for our regular e-newsletter.

We’ll also partner with local councils and other organisations, like community groups, to provide updates and we’re always happy to do face to face or online talks and host site tours for groups.

Get in touch if you’d like to find out more or be involved.

Reservoir activities

We hope the reservoir will become a great place for people of all ages to stay healthy, learn more about water and wildlife and get together as a community.

Our plans include paths for walking, cycling and horse riding, picnic and play areas and facilities for bird watching. (The paths will extend about 5km around the reservoir and will be fully accessible).

We’re also proposing to build a visitor centre at the heart of the site with an information and education area, café and toilets.

We shared our revised plans during our public consultation in May / June 2020, with the comments and ideas we had in from people being considered as we develop our proposals further.

We’re working closely with Staunton Country Park which is next to the reservoir site, as well as Forestry England, which runs the nearby Havant Thicket site, to make sure our facilities work well together.

Schools and education

The reservoir project offers fantastic opportunities for education locally – not only when the reservoir is complete, but also during the planning and construction stages.

Local pupils have been involved since the start of the project, with local young people providing feedback during both our 2008 and 2020 public consultations.

And as the reservoir progresses, the reservoir will become a great venue to learn about the water cycle, climate change, the environment and wildlife, and STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths).

We’re also involving young people in our environment work to grow and plant trees and hedgerows.

When built, school parties will be welcome at the reservoir to use the education space, bird hides, interpretation boards and the leisure facilities.

Resources

Staunton Country Park in Havant currently houses our education programme, with schools able to visit, learn about the water cycle and the importance of saving water.

Find out more by clicking here, or if you’re a school and would like to get involved in the reservoir project, please contact us.

Our partners

Building a reservoir is a huge task and to do it well, we need to work in partnership.

Via our dedicated Havant Thicket Reservoir stakeholder group, we’ve been working regularly with representatives from local councils, wildlife organisations, water industry regulators and others since 2004 to plan the reservoir.

This makes sure everyone’s point of view is taken into account at every stage and helps us identify issues and opportunities.

The group is made up of representatives from organisations including those listed below, and you can access minutes from each stakeholder group meeting on our Library page:

• The Consumer Council for Water
• East Hampshire District Council
• Environment Agency
• Forestry England
• Friends of Staunton Country Park
• Hampshire County Council
• Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust
• Hampshire Ornithological Society
• Havant Borough Council
• Rowlands Castle Parish Council
• Portsmouth City Council
• Park Community School
• South Downs National Park
• Southern Water.

We’re also meeting with local MPs, business groups and other interested parties.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss opportunities to partner with us on the project.