No. The Farmoor reservoir already exists - about a mile and a half away from where I'm sitting right now.

The new reservoir is planned south of Abingdon, in the Vale of the White Horse District. I would think it WILL be visible from White Horse Hill, after all, you can already see Didcot power station from up there and the reservoir will be in front of there as you look east from the hill.

The truth is that the copious quantities of ancient archaeology of this area, especially around Abingdon and around here, has already been largely trashed. Some stuff remains in crop marks, certainly between here in Eynsham and the Quoits at Stanton Harcourt, but large scale gravel extraction has wrecked most of it.

It's right on my doorstep, but I have no objection to it. Our population is too large in the south east. We need water for our dishwashers, two showers a day, so we can leave the tap on while we brush our teeth and flush gallons away every time we pee. Therefore we must have another reservoir. That's life.

The excellent knock on effect of all the flooded gravel pits and reservoirs round here is that we have an extraordinarily diverse range of birdlife.