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59
by the Companies, is about 1,350,000,000 gallons per day. It
will thus be seen that, when 300,000,000 gallons are taken, there
will be left to flow down into the tidal portion of the river an
average daily quantity of not less than 1,000,000,000; and we
think that regulations could be framed under which the quantity
we suggest could be taken, not only without reducing the flow of
the river on the rare occasions of exceptional drought to the
present minimum, but in such a way as to secure that the volume
of water left in the river at these times should be substantially
greater than it is under existing conditions.
"To our minds, one great advantage of such a scheme of
storage reservoirs is that it can be carried out progressively to
meet the increasing demands for water; and should the population
not grow so rapidly as we have thought it right to
contemplate, the extensions may be from time to time deferred as
successive decennial enumerations reveal that the ratio of increase
is remaining stationary or even falling. From the sources and
by the methods we have mentioned, a daily supply of 424,000,000
gallons can, in our opinion, be obtained. This is a sufficient
quantity to supply 35 gallons per head to a population of
12,000,000 persons, which is about three-quarters of a million in
excess of what the total population of Greater London, together
with the outlying parts of Water London, will have become in
1931 even if the ratio of increase in the last decennial period from
1881 to 1931 is fully maintained. We are further of opinion that
a large supply of water might be obtained from the chalk area
east of the Kent Companies' district in the basis of the Medway,
and in the district further east, without any risk whatever of
damage to that area."
The London County Council and its Views upon the
Water Supply.
Of these witnesses examined whose evidence was directly
adverse to the reservoir and storage schemes put forward by the