WATER could be pumped from Pound Lane in Marlow in an ambitious plan to help fill the River Wye in High Wycombe.

The Environment Agency is considering extracting water from boreholes in the town and pumping it six miles along new pipes to the river basin at High Wycombe.

The agency is looking at the plan among other options as a way of restoring the historic river.

The Environment Agency says the proposal could be linked with the possible closure of Wycombe Marsh Sewage Works and its resiting at Little Marlow.

The closure of the Wycombe Marsh Sewage Works could lower the water level in the Wye.

Other options could include reducing the amount of water abstracted from other sections of the river.

Kevin Broadhead, Environment Agency project manager for the scheme, said: "We have carried out a preliminary study about the low flows in the River Wye.

"One of the possibilities being costed up is to draw water from West Marlow. But it is a case of looking at the environmental impact as well as the cost."

He added that moving the sewage works would affect river levels.

A spokesman for Thames Water said: "If the Wycombe works did close, which is certainly not planned at the moment, then it probably would affect the level of the Wye in terms of the fact that treated waste water goes into the river.

"But if these proposals ever come to anything, we would have to liaise very closely with the Environment Agency about that very issue, water levels."

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