Anglian Water - Fens Reservoir
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Our emerging design

Overall approach

The distinctive ‘ammonite’ shape of the emerging design could create interest and become an attractive landmark. It’s a deliberately man-made approach, featuring in a landscape that has been shaped and altered by the people living and working here for generations.

The approach is inspired by the area’s ancient history with ammonite fossils – small marine creatures – found in the earth below the site, dating from a time when it was under the North Sea.

Emerging opportunities include places for recreation both on the water and land, with other areas focused on nature to create calm, quiet spaces.

We have considered the potential for connections to the surrounding communities and around the reservoir itself with opportunities for walking, cycling and horse riding. Routes of various lengths, and connections to Chatteris, Doddington and Wimblington, are all included in our emerging design.

The emerging design features a lagoon in the north west of the reservoir where water levels would largely remain consistent.

The use of excavated earth to create new landforms could provide a variety of different experiences for visitors. These could be open areas with long views across the Fenland landscape, places for play and exploring, shaded, sheltered areas, and places where people, nature and water all come together.

We’ve included a variety of habitat ideas to encourage wildlife at this stage, with different wetland types both inside the reservoir and surrounding it.

Large-scale wetlands next to the Forty Foot Drain are under consideration, with a view to potentially encouraging links along the watercourses for wildlife between the reservoir and existing sites including the Ouse Washes and Nene Washes, and the Great Fen project area.

Our emerging design

The size of the reservoir means that it presents the potential for many different areas and experiences.

We think including this variation could be a good way of making sure the reservoir offers opportunities for everyone, while also supporting the natural environment.

At this stage, we have organised the emerging design into five areas and explain our ideas in this diagram.

Click to zoom
Click to zoom Click to zoom
For illustrative purposes only
For illustrative purposes only For illustrative purposes only

Embankment design

We are seeking to avoid a reservoir with basic, uniform embankment slopes that provide no shelter or integration with the surrounding landscape.

At this stage, we have considered options for embankments with shallower gradients and with planting and other features that could improve accessibility and appearance.

We estimate that the embankment crest height will be between 10 and 15 meters above existing ground level. In the emerging design the embankments are shown at 12.5 metres. However, these are not fixed at this stage and require further investigation and assessment.

What positive embankment integration could include. Illustration showing a range of ways in which the embankment could be integrated into its surroundings
What positive embankment integration could include. Illustration showing a range of ways in which the embankment could be integrated into its surroundings What positive embankment integration could include. Illustration showing a range of ways in which the embankment could be integrated into its surroundings
Example of how embankment integration could work for the south west quarter of our emerging design, with ideas for viewing landform and wetland areas.
Example of how embankment integration could work for the south west quarter of our emerging design, with ideas for viewing landform and wetland areas. Example of how embankment integration could work for the south west quarter of our emerging design, with ideas for viewing landform and wetland areas.

Find out more

To view our emerging design in more detail, and to see visualisations of what different parts of the site could look like, view our interactive map.

Interactive map

Find out more

You can find out more information about our emerging design by reading our main site design brochure.

You can find out more about the process we followed by reading our main site design report.

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Get in touch

Contact the project team today.

Freephone: 0800 915 2492

Email: info@fensreservoir.co.uk

Post: Freepost Fens Reservoir

Useful documents

You can view and download our project documents here

pdf

A guide to our proposals and phase two consultation brochure

Download
pdf

Phase two consultation - associated water infrastructure proposals

Download
pdf

Phase two consultation - main site design brochure

Download
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