THAMES Water is looking to sell off Wroughton Reservoir amid concerns by the local angling club that there are no fish left.

The water firm and owner of the reservoir on Overtown Hill met members of the parish council to discuss the possibility of it taking on the responsibility of managing the site.

The reservoir is not open to the public and the angling group is no longer active there due to falling fish numbers. Herons and cormorants are blamed by some.

But chairman of the parish council John Hewer ruled out the council taking over the reservoir to the Adver, citing potentially unknown costs in the future, despite its potential as a wildlife spot.

“It is a lovely area for public use, there’s lots of wildlife there,” he said.

“But there’s a lot of safety issues that would need to be addressed before it would even be considered, and the cost of achieving that would not be something the council would be comfortable with.

“Thames Water no longer has a use for the reservoir, so it is trying to offer it to us really.

“The legacy issue is that if anything went wrong with it we would have full responsibility of it.

“Anybody that takes over the reservoir would have to abide by the Reservoir Act 1975.

“You could say that’s a bottomless pit of money which obviously the parish council hasn’t got.

“The anglers don’t use it anymore because the herons got all the fish.

“There’s an abundance of wildlife up there, but there are steep sides so it would need safety fencing around that to allow families in there. It’s not like Coate Water.”

Local angler Arron Pickett told the Adver: “It’s gone down hill the last few years. I think cormorants have eaten a lot of the smaller fish. There’s still some tench, bream and carp in there.

“There are fish, just not that many. People have stopped going because they never catch anything.

“It could be a good venue once again if re-stocked and managed against cormorants.”

A spokesman for Thames Water said: “Wroughton Reservoir is an active site and we constantly monitor its levels. We also make weekly visits to the reservoir to check the equipment and fencing.

“There is potential for the reservoir to be made redundant in the future due to upgrades we’ve made to our wider water supply network, at which point a decision would be made on the future of the site.”

The site was listed in the 2013 land assessment by Swindon Borough Council but removed from the Neighbourhood Plan.