A soggy state of affairs

A great while ago, the world began
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain

I’ve sounded off a lot in this blog about the dire state of our water industry in the UK, and the parlous state of affairs that privatisation of the sector has left us with. Then today I took a look at the amount that my local water company wants to increase my bill by next year, in order to facilitate its investment plans, so I’m sounding off again. 84%. Ouch. Even the toothless regulator Ofwat thinks that’s taking the proverbial.

Now the government has announced that there is to be an independent far-reaching review of the water industry, the biggest for 35 years, headed up by no lesser august personage than the former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir John Cunliffe.

One of the problems that we have with water in this country is that there is either too much of it, or too little of it. Or, it’s all in the wrong place, at the wrong time. A two-hour burst, helping to fill up my local reservoir or the rain-butt in the garden overnight, fine. A deluge at 9am on a Saturday when I’m trying to schlep round my local park, or weeks of rain drowning farmers’ newly planted crops, not so good.

Because we believe we are a pretty rainy, wet country, we don’t really take our water seriously. We waste it, running taps for longer than we should when rising out the baked bean cans of recycling, or cleaning our teeth. Teenagers think nothing of spending 30 minutes in the shower, whilst spouting their environmental evangelism as they do so.

And we have leaks from pipes. So many leaks. Of course pipelines break from time to time,  and spring leaks.  The Victorians brought in our modern sewer system, and most of it is still in operation. It’s clunky and in need of investment. Yet the water companies say that they have no money to invest what is needed in order to bring that Victorian system up to modern day standards. Not without charging the customer a lot more on their water bills.  We probably are paying too little for our water, if you think what we expect it to do for us, day in day out. And yet, when we see the huge dividends being trousered by shareholders in the privatised water companies, we baulk at the idea of forking out more. Especially when it appear that they can’t actually do the jobs they are being paid to do. Namely, get water to where it is required, instead of forcing householders to queue up for hours to collect litres of plastic bottle water – for days at a time. Southern Water, I’m looking at you. Ensure that sewage, raw sewage, gets taken from its entry point to treatment works and is dealt with  without ending up in our rivers, our seas and our streams, where it plays havoc with local ecosystems.

So the review is long overdue. .  It may find that the best way to move forward would be to reform or abolish the current regulatory bodies, and will include a panel of experts from different fields, including environmental groups, engineering and consumer bodies, although the water companies themselves won’t be included. Whether it will be effective, or just another way of kicking the can down the road remains to be seen.