It was branded a white elephant when it opened, but Keilder Water in Northumberland has become not only a vital water resource for the region, but a successful tourist attraction that has transformed the local economy.

As staff prepare to celebrate the reservoir's 21st anniversary, Dan Jennings looks at its changing role.

THE heavy industry that Kielder was built to support was in decline before the reservoir was finished.

Embarrassingly, it meant the North-East had Europe's biggest man-made lake but no apparent use for the water it held.

But the water board bosses up and down the country who branded Kielder a white elephant have come to envy it.

In the 21 years that have passed since the Queen officially opened the reservoir, it has proved its usefulness in times of drought.

Northumbrian Water still uses it to send supplies across the region as far as Teesside, and - in a dire emergency - it could even reach York.

The reservoir is also one of the biggest tourist attractions in the region, bringing in 300,000 visitors a year. And it generates enough hydroelectricity to power a small market town.

During the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, experts realised that, if the demand for water for heavy industry kept increasing, supply would run out in the region by the mid-1970s. Teesside, with its thriving steel and chemical manufacturing plants, was most in need.

Engineers from across the North-East came together and looked at more than 30 schemes before deciding on Kielder as the best possible location for a new lake.

Residents in Kielder and nearby Plashetts opposed the scheme and it went to two public inquiries before the Secretary of State approved the project.

But in the nine years it took to build, the industry that was the region's economic backbone went into a sharp decline and demand for water fell. Kielder was obsolete before it was finished.

John Lackenby, general manager of Northumbrian Water's leisure facilities, said: "Unfortunately, by the time Kielder was half finished, demand for water had dropped back to 1950 levels. Industry started to go into decline.

"Big customers in the North-East, such as ICI, British Steel and British Coal, started to pull back on their production and this had a knock-on effect."

Work was completed in 1980 and it took the rainfall of two winters to fill the reservoir.

The end product was roundly mocked by other water authorities as serving no purpose, but they changed their minds when droughts struck England in the early 1990s.

"When the droughts came, Kielder saved the North-East," said Mr Lackenby.

"While there were hosepipe bans and other restrictions in place across the country, there were none here. Kielder became the envy of most water companies."

The company moves the water across the region in the most natural way possible, using a network of rivers.

"The network allows us to send huge volumes of water down the rivers," he said. "If you use pipes, you are restricted on how much you can send by the size of the pipe.

"It is a fantastic safety valve for us. For instance, if we had a pollution incident, we have the ability to network water from Kielder to anywhere in the region and can get it to 80 per cent of the population in the North-East."

Its popularity as a tourist attraction has soared from the days when the only facility on site was a sailing club, to include angling, golf, swimming and birds of prey. When the Queen opened the site in 1982, children from all local schools attended the ceremony.

Northumbrian Water is repeating history by throwing a birthday party for more than 100 youngsters on Wednesday.

Joining them will be three adults who were there the first time around - Jonty Hall, who opened the reservoir's first valve and is now a ranger on the site; Sheena Robinson, who presented the Queen with a posy in 1982; and Tonia Reeve, the site's manager.

Mrs Reeve said: "We are inviting children from all the schools that came in 1982. It is nice to keep our strong links with the community and is great for me, because my six-year-old son, Lewis, will be there."

Lost forever

THE reservoir covers part of the old village of Kielder, including the former village school, plus all of the former colliery village of Plashetts and three farms.

More than 50 families had to be moved to new houses before their homes were flooded.