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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?

#231

Post by adornKey »

komali2 wrote: post #101
sandbags wrote: post #34

As the article mentions, privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources. What the article doesn’t mention is that pre-privatisation a new reservoir was built every year up to about 1960 and then every few years until privatisation in 1992. So we are about 30 years behind in adding capacity to the system. This combined with the inadequate levels of i…

I was fascinated on my recent trip to the UK to learn how much of their infrastructure they'd privatized semi-recently. Trains, hm, well it kinda works in Japan so maybe not so bad, but, water and SEWAGE??? In what universe does it make sense to have one of the most critical infrastructure systems, the backbone of health for a city, participate in a marketplace? Insanity. Not to mention the fact that at the end of th…

More likely they'll hand out laxatives and ask people to help solve some fertilization crisis out there in the fields...

And there'll be commercials - Scotland - Heavy rain (horizontal) - A woman totally drenched (with baby in hands) - In panic - Warning about the impending water crisis.

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

#232

Post by philipallstar »

bjoli wrote: post #164
philipallstar wrote: post #151

England's population has been rising far faster than it would naturally rise due to immigration. This means giant sums of money need to be borrowed to fund capital-intensive projects including new energy and water sources. They haven't been done enough on the water side. It's incredibly expensive to have the population increase this fast.

Always the immigrants. Weird that they are to blame, even though water abstraction has been trending downwards for close to 30 year.

It's not always the immigrants. That comment's just as intelligent as actually believing it's always the immigrants. If the population were growing rapidly due to everyone having larger families, that would be the reason, but it's not.

If you add millions of people over the last 25 years (say) then of course water will become much scarcer. And it's not like, say, food supply, which scales up and down relatively nicely with demand. Additional water provision is a massive capital investment each time to provide a load more provision in a big chunk.

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

#233

Post by teamonkey »

arethuza wrote: post #184
teamonkey wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the same site: https://theferret.scot/water-pollution-scotland-england-most... One thing of note about Scotland is that water is free (i.e. paid for by taxes) there.

It's not free - there are explicit charges for it attached to our council taxes?

I literally said “I.e. paid for by taxes” :)

But it’s unmetered, unlike most of the UK, and, as the other poster mentioned, cheaper.

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

#234

Post by philipallstar »

fredley wrote: post #190
bjoli wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always the immigrants. Weird that they are to blame, even though water abstraction has been trending downwards for close to 30 year.

> faster than it would naturally Implying migration is 'unnatural'. Which it isn't, humans have migrated as long as they've existed, and without migration the population in the UK would be trending down, which is a very bad problem to deal with.

> Implying migration is 'unnatural'.

This is just silly. Natural population growth is a term. Being the connotation police is entirely unnecessary.

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

#235

Post by bluecheese452 »

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…

Claiming “Most people would agree” is not strong evidence that something was a good idea. I could just as easily assert most people would agree that it was a mistake.

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

#236

Post by [deleted] »

alt227 wrote: post #225
walthamstow wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I included the East of England region which includes home counties like Beds, Herts and Essex. Any measure of "around London" must include Essex, surely.

IMO 'around London' is Greater London. If you mean the whole South East of England, then say that.

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by physicsguy »

bluecheese452 wrote: post #223
krona wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the neglect and failure to invest in infrastructure is the worst Cumulative capital investment by water companies in England and Wales since privatisation: £250bn. The infrastructure they inherited was never designed for the things it's being asked to do today, and it has a life expectancy. It would literally cost trillions to upgrade the entire sewerage system. This isn't apologia, it's just reality. The r…

These systems were built at a time when the country was much poorer. It can afford to replace it.

They were largely also built when planning wasn't a concern. Can you imagine the city of Birmingham being able to just buy land and building resevoirs in Wales and viaducting it all to the city today? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_Valley_Reservoirs

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

#238

Post by epanchin »

sandbags wrote: post #34

As the article mentions, privatised water companies have built no new reservoir capacity and relied on drawing from rivers and other sources. What the article doesn’t mention is that pre-privatisation a new reservoir was built every year up to about 1960 and then every few years until privatisation in 1992. So we are about 30 years behind in adding capacity to the system. This combined with the inadequate levels of i…

The Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Responsible for putting a pin in development and turning Britain into a museum, with insufficient water or power.

It should urgently be reformed.

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

#239

Post by bluecheese452 »

refurb wrote: post #168
komali2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thatcher's been dead for 12 years and out of power for 35, so I'm not sure why it should take much gumption. Reagan, Thatcher, all the same, and their ideology kept alive by neoliberals (basically every politician that isn't an out and out socialist or snidely toeing fascism) and the Chicago school of economics. Find me a national leader that believing in the flourishing of the country (and all the people in it) an…

I’m assuming you’re really young. The US and UK were in terrible shape before Reagan and Thatcher took office. Both improved after they were elected?

No?

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

#240

Post by MrDrDr »

This highlights one of the big problems with liberal democracies - how do you provide efficient (and even innovative) public services? There is no free market for many public services like water (and where there is I’m all for privatisation). But the people (I am in the UK) do not tend to elect a government on its ability to manage these types of services. I do wonder if there some other structure that blends a not for profit ethos with employee ownership and just enough competition…
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