Sir – Mr Knowles (letter, June 24) writes lyrically about the lake at Blenheim and about Thirlmere and supports the Abingdon reservoir if it is likely to look like either of those, but he ends by saying “if, on the other hand, it is proposed to emulate without imagination the awful bunds at Staines, GARD has my support”. Well, that is exactly what is planned.

The Abingdon reservoir will be surrounded by an embankment that will be up to 25 metres high, described by GARD as the height of a tall electricity pylon, and it will surround an area of four square miles.

No landscaping, however attractive, can hide the sheer enormity of an embankment like this in countryside as low-lying as the Vale.

Far from improving “a dreary and featureless stretch of Oxfordshire” (Mr Knowles’ description), the long views you now get over the fields and hedges of this area will be truncated by an overwhelmingly tall embankment which I think even Mr Knowles would agree is unlikely to be an improvement.

In 2007, villages close to the reservoir site, such as Steventon, suffered disastrous flooding.

The reservoir is being built close to the village in the floodplain that enabled those floods to retreat from the village in 48 hours.

If the reservoir is built, not only will it occupy this flood plain, but water running off the embankment facing the village will exacerbate future flooding.

Plans for new water courses to remove this floodwater will only hasten the speed with which it reaches the River Ock, which will only increase the danger of flooding in south Abingdon that also suffered so badly in 2007.

All this to meet a need that has been exaggerated and can be met by more cost-effective and less environmentally damaging means.

Catherine Petts Steventon