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How can England possibly be running out of water?

theguardian.com

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Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#121

Post by arethuza »

graemep wrote: post #118
PaulRobinson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privatisation" does not preclude government investment in infrastructure. "Thatcherism" does, however. It is a warped [Ayn] Randian view of capitalism and those who drive it. State intervention into the machinery of capital, even when it comes to essential infrastructure, is considered a corrupting influence. Nobody able to change national policy within Downing Street or even ministries in Whitehall, at the time - o…

I think you are misrepresenting Thatcherism. Thatcher was pretty pragmatic and did not want to privatise everything - e.g. Royal Mail and the Post Office - those were done by the very non-Thatcherite coalition government in 2013. They were also messed up (e.g. private ownership of the postcode database). https://www.ft.com/content/1057f722-75d5-11e1-9dce-00144feab... A lot of NHS privatisation was done by Blair and B…

It's the problem with ideological thinking - from what I can see some privatisations worked well (e.g. Rolls Royce) and others went terribly (rail, water in England) - unfortunately they tend to get treated as all bad or all good.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#122

Post by graemep »

arethuza wrote: post #121
graemep wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misrepresenting Thatcherism. Thatcher was pretty pragmatic and did not want to privatise everything - e.g. Royal Mail and the Post Office - those were done by the very non-Thatcherite coalition government in 2013. They were also messed up (e.g. private ownership of the postcode database). https://www.ft.com/content/1057f722-75d5-11e1-9dce-00144feab... A lot of NHS privatisation was done by Blair and B…

It's the problem with ideological thinking - from what I can see some privatisations worked well (e.g. Rolls Royce) and others went terribly (rail, water in England) - unfortunately they tend to get treated as all bad or all good.

I disagree about rail - nationalised British Rail was pretty terrible, had more accidents per distance travelled, and carried far fewer people. It think it made little difference.

Nationalised water in Scotland is no better than privatised in England and Wales, and has a higher rate of sewer leaks: https://theferret.scot/scotland-behind-england-sewage-leaks/

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#123

Post by impossiblefork »

flumpcakes wrote: post #115
impossiblefork wrote: post #109

Incredibly overpopulated. 434 people per km^2. 1.81 times the population density of Germany. I think the question should really be, how can it not be out of water? There's literally only 48x48 metres per person.

That's just England though. Scotland has 70 people per km^2. Water is also "free". Free as in, it's part of your council tax and all water is nationalised. You do not buy it from a private company. I would prefer it was metered so companies that use a lot of water are charged commensurately. Council tax in itself is a regressive tax, so adding water charges to that makes things worse.

Yes, but I think it's the population density of the densely populated regions that matters.

It's not like they're bringing water from Scotland to England by pipeline.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#124

Post by tome »

alt227 wrote: post #116
PaulRobinson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Privatisation" does not preclude government investment in infrastructure. "Thatcherism" does, however. It is a warped [Ayn] Randian view of capitalism and those who drive it. State intervention into the machinery of capital, even when it comes to essential infrastructure, is considered a corrupting influence. Nobody able to change national policy within Downing Street or even ministries in Whitehall, at the time - o…

> "Privatisation" does not preclude government investment in infrastructure. But if private companies are taking the equity out of the service via profit, then why should the government spend public money to build new infrastructure to support them?

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Firstly, it's a type error to say "taking equity out of the service via profit". Profit, by definition, does not come from equity. Secondly, the government should spend public money to build public infrastructure because that's one of the major purposes of a government. Thirdly, if you're saying "private companies will use that public infrastructure to make profit", then I guess, yes, they will, just like they use roads. But I would certainly say that if water companies sell water from public reservoirs to customers then they should be required to pay for that service! Why not?

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#125

Post by olalonde »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #26

As a German, what amazes me, it seems like many people in England are on a water flatrate, as far as I understand it. No one (?) in Germany is.

In most of Quebec, water is not billed nor metered. It's considered as a "public good" and paid for through property taxes. That does lead to overuse and waste though.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#126

Post by everfrustrated »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #21

Can't they get water from the ocean?

Theres no shortage of water from rain. Problem is that England is pretty flat and all the rain drains to the ocean (100% of rivers leak) without natural lakes and dams (requires mountains) being available. Hence very expensive projects to create storage lakes.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#127

Post by traceroute66 »

Its a similar story for gas.

Previous government sold off the land on which gas storage once sat to private developers to build houses and business parks.

Roll forward 25–30 years later, UK is something like 65% dependent on gas imports from the EU who kept the majority of their gas storage ... quite an ironic position in the post-Brexit era.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#128

Post by monadgonad »

RagnarD wrote: post #89

[flagged]

The article, and especially much of the discussion here, is about how privatisation has led to this situation. Privatisation of a public utility which _even in many other developed liberal capitalist countries_ is not privatised. Yet to you this is not evidence that we are an extreme example of neoliberalism, but somehow “defacto socialist” and your solution is throwing fuel on the fire with more privatisation. You’re living on a different planet, mate.

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#129

Post by arethuza »

impossiblefork wrote: post #123
flumpcakes wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just England though. Scotland has 70 people per km^2. Water is also "free". Free as in, it's part of your council tax and all water is nationalised. You do not buy it from a private company. I would prefer it was metered so companies that use a lot of water are charged commensurately. Council tax in itself is a regressive tax, so adding water charges to that makes things worse.

Yes, but I think it's the population density of the densely populated regions that matters. It's not like they're bringing water from Scotland to England by pipeline.

Worth noting that most of the population of Scotland is concentrated in the Central Belt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Belt

Re: How can England possibly be running out of water?

#130

Post by blitzar »

tome wrote: post #105
seanalltogether wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of reservoirs and emergency supply seems to be completely at odds with privatisation. What private company is going to spend loads of money to build deep reservoirs that are stressed only once every 5 or 10 years. None. They're going to reach for an immediate supply like a river or aquifer and then raise prices if those sources run low. It's insane to plan out infrastructure on the belief that private com…

I'm inclined to agree that privatisation is bad for long term planning, but the history of the Abingdon Reservoir proposal seems to be counter evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abingdon_Reservoir Looks like Thames Water (a private company) proposed the development nearly 20 years ago, but it was turned down by the Environment Agency , a government body. > Plans for a £1bn reservoir in Oxfordshire to supply more…

> Thames Water's computer-generated image of how the reservoir would look

We have come a long way in computer generated images in 14 years.

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