Plans to expand a proposed reservoir would threaten the safety of a village near Wantage, a campaign group has claimed.

Thames Water wants to increase the size of its planned reservoir, situated between Steventon, Drayton, Marcham and East Hanney, by 50 per cent.

But the Group Against Reservoir Development warned this would put villagers in East Hanney at risk if there was a fault in the reservoir.

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Chairman Derek Stork said: “The bigger it gets, the bigger the risk.

“There have been a lot of new houses built since 2010, such as in the west end of Steventon and the east side of East Hanney.

“The increase by 50 per cent of size takes the reservoir closer to the side of East Hanney.

“This thing is going to last for 250 years and there is a chance each year there will be a fault with the wall of the reservoir.

“If the reservoir system is being monitored properly then faults will be detected and the whole population will have to be evacuated.”

Mr Stork warned there could be a repeat of what happened in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire, in 2019, when around 1,400 people in 400 houses were told to leave their properties with just minutes' notice as a dam threatened to burst.

He said: “This could easily happen in Hanney. It could happen in Steventon. It could even happen in Abingdon.”

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The group has asked to meet with the Environment Agency to discuss its safety concerns.

It comes after Thames Water published its draft Water Resources Management Plan last month which outlined how much water the company would need for customers by 2075.

The plan forecasts it would need an additional billion litres of water every day, enough to fill approximately 400 Olympic sized swimming pools, to accommodate climate change, growing population and to reduce the amount of water taken from rivers and chalk streams.

It proposed to increase the size of the reservoir from 100 Mm3 to 150 Mm3.

A spokesman for Thames Water said: “We need to invest in new sources of water if we are to provide a secure and sustainable supply for the future.

“Our revised draft plan sets out that if we do nothing, we could face a shortfall of over one billion litres of water per day by 2075.

“A new larger reservoir in Oxfordshire would not only help secure water supplies for future generations but provide a once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in new infrastructure and provide many social, economic and environmental benefits.”