Sorry for a few generalisations that follow, but being the first day of the hose pipe ban I just want to have a kick at the fat cat water companies who rip us off with high charges for a service they are failing to provide.

They love to use words like “sustainability” and “scarce resources” describing their services, and would have us believe we are in the Sahara, rather than a wet Island surrounded by sea where parts consistently flood.
They are very quick to jump on the “eco bandwagon” to disguise the fact that they are really very hungry and fat monopolists.

We all know population are concentrated in the South East which is the driest part of our country, and Scotland has had record rainfall. Why is this a problem. The Norwegians manage to pump a huge amount of our gas across the ocean to supply us, Russia can pipe oil across the continent! I am sure technology is available to pipe water whether in pipes or canals. Maybe dig a few new underground reservoirs. Unfortunately there seems no political will to bring these lazy guys to heel.

The real reason for the water company apathy is cash! Water is a natural utility. People cannot easily change supplier and the companies know this so they can squeeze their customers. When water companies were privatised this was manna from heaven for the lucky directors and shareholders. They obviously love “rewarding shareholders” who often also happen to be water company bosses with big dividends. Lots of cash comes out but they are not good at putting this back and investing and creating new infrastructure. Our water companies are so juicy and fat with their “winnings” that overseas companies have bought most of them…its hard to turn down such a lovely cash flow!

We all have stories of how slow water companies are to fix leaks. In my town in Hertfordshire a water main blew today before 6am…it was still running at 6pm…we have a hose pipe ban

where did you get idea that Scotland has had record rainfall, the trails are the driest I have ever seen for this time of year.

In my town in Hertfordshire ……….we have a hose pipe ban

Yeah but to be fair, it hardly heather rains in Hertfordshire.

.

Or is that hurricanes hardly heather happen ? 😕

We all know population are concentrated in the South East which is the driest part of our country,

To quote my dad (man of kent who left for the moist north west 50 years ago) “Nobody forces you to live there” 🙂

So you nick our oil and now you want our water ?.

You have to remember we decided like right minded people not to privatise our water up in Scotland so you only have yourselves to blame when the big greedy companys take your hard earned cash but provide a terrible service.

….you only have yourselves to blame when the big greedy companys take your hard earned cash but provide a terrible service.

This is very true.

“population are concentrated in the South East which is the driest part of our country, and Scotland has had record rainfall. Why is this a problem”

There is no national water pipe grid?

“Norwegians manage to pump a huge amount of our gas across the ocean to supply us, Russia can pipe oil across the continent!”

How much is oil per litre? How much is water per litre?

You obviously don’t work anywhere near to the water industry do you (like the vast majority of the population). I have worked in the supplier to water companies now for a month over 10 years.

There is, IMHO, a lot of wastage in the industry. You would not believe how much prevarication there is and also how much work is created to keep people in work again IMHO. I could quote examples.

If you believe there is no investment in infrastructure you are sadly mistaken. Which again is no surprise as you are not close to the industry. When I came to the water industry I had worked for 20 plus years in a technological/scientific/engineering job but I had no idea how much energy is used in supplying drinking water and treating sewage and waste water. I still don’t but I do know that it is a LOT!

An island surrounded by sea so why not build sea water conversion plants like the countries of the middle east do?

1. A majority of those countries are energy (oil) rich so can afford the capital and opex of running de-salination plants.
2. The seas around these countries is (from a technical point of veiw) considerably hotter than our seas. So a like for like plant in the UK and UEA would have the UK plant using more energy to produce the same volume of drinking water.

I am not totally trying to defend water companies. As I said I do know that there is a LOT of waste and I agree that I do feel that too much money goes out to share holders when in my opinion the companies are not performing as well as they should be. Like banking (and probably so many other business sectors) far too much money goes to investors when the companies are failing to deliver a service that is good enough.

However the answers aren’t as simple as building new reservoirs etc. Again I’m no expert in this particular area but the geology of regions plays a massive part in water resource. I did not understand until recently why the S E doesn’t seem to have a lot of surface reservoirs while the N does. The reason being the S E is underpinned by permeable chalk soils/rock strata and generally water in the S E is supplied by bore holes. This also means that to build surface reservoirs in the area would mean that the reservoir would have to be built with a fabricated water proof course as the natural rock could not be relied on. Even if that wasn’t the case who has the money to buy large tracts of land in the S E? And would you be happy to be told that you were going to have to move to a new area cos your valley was going to be dammed and flooded to make a new reservoir so you could run a hose pipe 12 months a year.

IMO water as well as energy are going to be the BIG areas of conflict in coming years (as they are incontrovertibly linked).

Sorry for the rant.

I suppose I could simply have written – “the problem isn’t as simple as you might think/believe”?

Water bills have gone up less than inflation since privatisation. As the same can’t be said of council tax, do we seriously want it back in the control of Town Halls and Municipal Councils?

Thames Water wanted to build a £1bn reservoir in the SE, they were refused permission. They’re spending hundreds of millions on repairing water mains, but are restricted because people don’t like them digging up the roads. They’ve pretty much rebuilt Mogden over the last 5 years.
Yup, that’s an organisation that’s deliberately screwing the public and profiteering.
You really ought to stop reading the Daily Misogynist Mail

Are you sure that Scottish Water isn’t run the same way as every other UK water company?

Really? Are you the daily mail?

But wasn’t a lot of the Mogden rebuild to allow for teh expansion of Heathrow Airport?

Just my observations not the Daily mash! luckily don’t read that. I think we pay a lot for water considering the restricted service we have.. if they are not profiteering how is it they pay bigger dividends than most oil companies?

Farmer_John – Member

Water bills have gone up less than inflation since privatisation. As the same can’t be said of council tax, do we seriously want it back in the control of Town Halls and Municipal Councils?

Before Thatcher became prime minister the cost of your water was included in your council rates/tax. There was no such thing as a ‘water bill’.

So basically it’s gone up from ‘nothing’, to whatever it is today. I consider that to be quite a large rise.

Therefore the answer to your question it has to be yes. Unless of course you are happy paying for something which was in effect provided free by local authorities before.

i dont understand how people become so adamant that, in the face of occasional exceptional weather conditions, they would rather massive, £multibillion infrastructure projects were undertaken (at who’s expense I’m not sure) rather than they be denied the right to take gallons of purified drinking water and pour it on their lawn. Its only a lawn, if it goes a bit brown you don’t have to mow it, and when it rains again it’ll grow back for free.

We’re always hearing about the wastage levels – 3.36 billion litres per day in england and wales, apparently. But not how much the hosepipe ban will save, anyone know how it compares?

anyone know how it compares?

Apparently Thames Water reckons to save 5% as a result of the hosepipe ban.

You can always do it yourself if you aren’t happy. There are loads of rainwater harvesting systems out there. You can easily get enough to run a washing machine and flush the toilets for most of the year then just use the water company for the rest.

“Therefore the answer to your question it has to be yes. Unless of course you are happy paying for something which was in effect provided free by local authorities before. “

Erm are you sure about that? The old Regional Water Authorities certainly sent out standalone water bills before the privatisation took place…

can you prove the inflation claim as well as the

Water privatisation in England and Wales remains controversial. A 2001 study by the Public Services International Research Unit stated that

*tariffs increased by 46% in real terms during the first nine years,
*operating profits have more than doubled (+142%) in eight years,
*investments were reduced and
*public health was jeopardised through cut-offs for non-payment, however, this was made illegal in 1998 along with prepayment meters and ‘trickle valves’.[2

the central govt part of council tax has reduced so it is not a fair comparison. I am not sure whether the actual spending of councils has increased above inflation in the same period do you know if it has?
I am not sure your original statement is true but it is a bad comparison.

You can pour grey water straight onto your lawn, just harvest that and stop whining.

“Therefore the answer to your question it has to be yes. Unless of course you are happy paying for something which was in effect provided free by local authorities before. “

North of the border water is an itemised part of your council tax bill – I get a rebate because I’m not on the mains for water or sewerage. However the costs of making my own arrangements for both is more than what i’d be charged if I was on the grid

The reason being the S E is underpinned by permeable chalk soils/rock strata and generally water in the S E is supplied by bore holes. This also means that to build surface reservoirs in the area would mean that the reservoir would have to be built with a fabricated water proof course as the natural rock could not be relied on

Just to answer this one point; a fabricated water proof course is pretty much what is installed into an old quarry before it is used for waste – so can’t be either that expensive nor that hard.

Erm are you sure about that? The old Regional Water Authorities certainly sent out standalone water bills before the privatisation took place…

Absolutely. Before Thatcher became prime minister the cost of your water was included in your council rates/tax. There was no such thing as a ‘water bill’.

In preparation for privatisation water charges became itemised on your council rate bill (as Met police charges were also) But before that there was no mention of water charges in your council rate bill – it was just included along with refuse collection, libraries, education, etc.

Before Thatcher became prime minister the cost of your water was included in your council rates/tax. There was no such thing as a ‘water bill’.

So basically it’s gone up from ‘nothing’, to whatever it is today. I consider that to be quite a large rise

Council tax didn’t exist then, have you forgotten assaulting police officers in the the poll tax riots? 😉

£40 billion has been pumped into assets post privatization, if you think the service you get now water or wastewater compares to that of 20 years ago you are deluded as legislation and regulation now gives you a gold standard for quality.

Just to answer this one point; a fabricated water proof course is pretty much what is installed into an old quarry before it is used for waste – so can’t be either that expensive nor that hard.

But the size of the quarry is insignificant against the size of a decent impounding reservoir

But before that there was no mention of water charges in your council rate bill – it was just included along with refuse collection, libraries, education, etc.

It must have been free then, or are you talking as an expert or as a joiner?

Council tax didn’t exist then, have you forgotten assaulting police officers in the the poll tax riots?

🙄 I called it council rates.

The “/tax” I put in after it was to signify that it was a tax. Because that is what it was – a tax levied by a local authority/council…..which happened to be called “council rates”, and is still called that in Northern Ireland.

It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the “poll tax”, as you call the Community Charge tax which was introduced by Thatcher, so I don’t know why you are mentioning “the poll tax riots” and the oh-so-funny comment about “assaulting police officers”. And don’t suppose you really know why you mentioned it either.

Council rates predates both Thatcher and the Community Charge/poll tax.

And before Thatcher no one paid for water and sewage, the cost for that came out of council rates along with street maintenance, social services, parks and open spaces, etc.

You must be extremely desperate big and daft, if after examining my post the best you could up with was some half-cock comment about the poll tax ….. which simply betrayed just how confused you are.

are you talking as an expert or as a joiner?

I never talk as an expert about anything. I’m just a simple soul who isn’t particularly bright or well qualified.

And yet despite that, I consistently appear to be vastly more clued up than you. Which really doesn’t say much for you mate.

A key point in the current situation that is not mentioned by the OP is that we are facing the worst drought on record. In the south east it is significantly worse today than it was in 1976.

Given how much had to be done then to keep supplies going then I’d say the companies are acting very responsibly. They can’t recover these costs either (unless they can no longer finance their functions). The companies take droughts very seriously. Decisions like switching off the trafalgor fountains isn’t one that would be easy I imagine.

You can provide much more resilient services but remember water bills are only about 1/3 of energy bills and there is something like 20pc of the uk in energy poverty and resilience for these very rare droughts is very expensive. It can be done but if we all do our bit like turning taps off when brushing your teeth it can help keep such costs down, the water flowing and be more sustainable. The companies have their duties but we should recognise what our role is when you get to these rare events.

Massive leakage, hundreds of millions taken out in profits. If the profits were invested in repairs instead it would go a long way to solving the issue.

Tandem – any large company needs to make profits to survive. Bear in mind they run cash negative so the profit is needed to attract the investment to keep the investment going. ‘profit’ is a poor measure of how such an industry operates but yes they make money as any company needs to. On leaks I imagine each company is throwing money at this but again its about diminishing returns. If a company has 30,000km of mains and probably 8million connections I doubt leaks will go away it’s more a question of the right level of leakage.

Ever thought how much leakage happens in gas and the transmission losses in electricity?

According to a BBC report the other day, Thames Water loses 25% of its water through leaking pipes, so if they were fixed there wouldn’t be any need for the bans. Basically it appears that they are just handing the responsibility over to paying customers, when they clearly haven’t been investing enough for whatever reason. I do have sympathy for people who struggle to pay their bills while utility companies walk away with massive profits and refuse to reinvest in more efficient systems, however I’m not particularly bothered by people who complain that they can’t water the grass or wash their cars/bikes. Just remember that both of those things are a huge luxury to have at all. If you live in a drier (for the uk) area, just plant things that can cope with it. If we were going to build a giant waterpipe to anywhere, we should institute a permanent hosepipe ban throughout the UK and pump the excess to Africa, ideally without the water companies making a huge profit. Obviously that is unlikely to ever happen for a whole host of reasons.

🙄

According to a BBC report the other day,
Thames Water loses 25% of its water through
leaking pipes

That’s meaningless unless you know what leakage the best water companies in the world achieve. anyone know?

I’m sure industry and leaks account for far more wastage than me ever using my hose to wash the car would. But still I can live with brown grass and a dirty car.

The BBC’s ‘hard hit’ customer yesterday though, some middle class numpty saying little Timmy couldn’t have his paddling pool filled up, seriously get a flinkin’ grip!

quick Google results.

http://www.ciwem.org/knowledge-networks/panels/water-supply–quality/water-distribution-network-leakage-in-the-uk.aspx

Generally, the UK water utilities are significantly
better than in many other countries, and the
lowest leakage companies in the UK compare
well internationally.

also, around a third of water loss is from pipes not owned by the water companies – eg homes, businesses, etc.

There’s not likely to be a hose pipe ban up here. It’s pissing down. Again! 🙁

You don’t have to get wet all the time! I do! And you come on here and have the bare faced affrontary to moan about a hose pipe ban! That’s the price you pay I’m afraid!!! you moaning southern Jessie’s!!! MTFU! And stop whining!!!

As said in the thread yesterday TJ’s industry best standard Scotch water has a leakage rate somewhere around 40% – but because they’re not profitable they’re obviously better.
There’s just been a piece on R4 about the River Wandle which in the early 80s was an open sewer and since privatisation massive investment has now made it clean enough for fish to return.
I’ve just returned from Spain with 2 low level flights across the middle of the country. There are hundreds of reservoirs – but the most of Spain is a desolate wasteland with very few people – it couldn’t happen here obviously.

Some old data on loss through leakage in urban pipe networks in Europe – UK figures should have improved since then –

Edit: And OFWAT’s rules –

We require the water companies to operate at the sustainable economic level of leakage, which identifies the level of leakage that gives consumers the best value for money. It compares the cost of reducing leakage to the costs of maintaining a balance between supply and demand in other ways, such as developing a new water resource, additional metering or promoting the efficient use of water.

A couple of odd things

– to fix all the leaks would take billions, significantly more than the profits made the companies.
– the water companies are fined if they don’t make progress in fixing leaks
– one of the reasons that we have the leaks is that we did not invest in water supply for a large part of the last century,
– most shares in the water companies are owned by the pension firms.
– ignore the fact that we live on an Island. It is rainfall that matters. In parts of the UK there has been historically low levels of rainfall.
– there have been talks about ‘piping’ water from the ‘wet’ parts to the ‘dry’ parts. Who would pay for this investment? How much would need to be piped to allow all the grass to remain green?

But the size of the quarry is insignificant against the size of a decent impounding reservoir

Hmm…, so only really, really big reservoirs count?

If the industry was unable to restrict its domestic customers’ usage, it’d have to look at other ways to ensure it got the resources to where they are needed/wanted – in fact maybe legislation ought to exist to say just this. And if the company (say Thames, was unable to supply), they lose the right and the franchise is sold/given to someone who can?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eldon_Hill_Quarry.jpg