A COUNCILLOR has expressed concerns about Basingstoke's water infrastructure and said that he fears it will not cope with 18,000 new houses. 

As previously reported, government calculations suggest as many as 17,820 new homes need to be built in Basingstoke and Deane by the end of 2039.

Council documents show that Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (BDBC) needs to build 7,703 houses more than it currently has in the pipeline.

It's part of the update of a document called the local plan, which sets the rules surrounding the development. 

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At a meeting of the borough council’s economic, planning and housing committee in September 2021, councillors unanimously voted in favour of rejecting the number of new homes, which is set under the government’s standard methodology procedure.

It has since been revealed that the figures had been calculated using the Standard Method, which uses data that is 13 years out of date.

As a decision on how many houses should be built looms closer, councillor Paul Harvey, the leader of the Basingstoke and Deane Independent Group, has raised concerns.

Cllr Harvey said: "We had a sewer leak last week - yet another example of one of the issues that we are facing with the infrastructure." 

He criticsed the water company and said that if 18,000 homes were built in Basingstoke it would add pressure to an already overloaded network.

He said it "exposes" how "utterly uninvested" our infrastructure for water is and how "at risk we are if we carry on building houses".

He added: "It is raw and it is real and it is now, not in 2050 it is right here and it is right now in 2022.

"It is not about saying we should stop all house building, it is about saying that infrastructure has to come first and we can not cope with 18,000 houses and we can not take that level of development and expect our water to stay clean and safe."

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A spokesman for South East Water rebuffed the claims and said its long-term Water Resources Management Plan sets out the forecast of expected changes in demand and available supply in the future taking account of population growth and climate.

The last update to its plan was made in 2018 – and covered the period 2020 to 2080.

They added: "Every five years we undertake a full review of our long term plans.

"Our western region, which includes Basingstoke, currently has a surplus water supply and we are making significant investments to our network to ensure we can continue to transfer water across the region and meet demand in areas of growth."