43 replies to this topic

[Dazza]

Thames water marketing going into overdrive they are now adverising why we are having a drought on the tube & now scaremongering in the papers that we will soon be on standpipes.

I wonder how much of our fee actually goes on maintenance of our water system !

Dazza

[grahamb]

Millions and millions goes into maintenance of a very old creaking network that suffered from chronic under-investment when it was publicly owned.. All of Thames Water (and all the other water companies') prices are set by the Government regulator Ofwat, as well as their business plans over the next five years, which includes all planned investment and capped prices that they are able to charge customers. So they are not taking advantage of people and there is absolutely no way that a drought could possibly be used as a sneaky way of making more money out of customers.

For every £1 in profit paid to shareholders by Thames Water, £4 is ploughed back into investing in the network. Water is too important to put in the hands of organisations that want to make a fast buck - many of the investors in water companies are pension funds - organisations that need to make reliable long term returns.

Even though fields may be waterlogged, water companies cannot use this water. The extraction and purification process makes use of groundwater and other sources where facilities exist to process and purify it so that 10 million Londoners can enjoy the cheapest and some of the purest and safest water in the world for around £1 a day (and don't forget they take all the s**t away too).

You cannot blame water companies for not being able to fit water meters in certain converted properties and you cannot Thames Water for the additional 1 million people that are projected to move into the South East over the next 20 years, putting huge stress on an areas of the country that is already the driest and most over-populated part of the UK.

You cannot blame water companies for the reduction in household size, meaning that each person uses proportionately more water than in a family home. You cannot blame water companies for the totally unpredictable effects of climate change.

I can't believe everybody thinks its some kind of conspiracy - and anyway, what does a drought actually mean? If you are so concerned about a hosepipe ban then you really need to get some perspective. Otherwise it just looks like people are tilting at windmills for want of something better to do. I think there are industries out there that are much more deserving of people's ire.

[moc]

Took over 6 weeks, and numerous local complaints, for them to come out and fix a large leak at the bottom our our road recently. Makes me wonder how much water was wasted, and how much more water is being wasted while other leaks are waiting so long to be repaired.

[Senor Buckethead]

The prize for a leak has to go the the Gipsy Hill Geyser which was only recently fixed. I don't think I'm exaggerating but I think it went on for a couple of years, in the pavement on the left hand pavement going up the hill just up and opposite from Christ Church. In winter it was a solid glacier (no exaggeration) running down the hill round the corner in to Woodland Hill. In summer it leached the sand that the various contractors had used to backfill followed by months (no exaggeration) of green slime on the paving slabs. Not much of a H & S risk - not that Lambeth would have cared.

I must have seen five or six different contractors digging it up, cocking it up, backfilling it and, presumably going to bank a big cheque for the work. As I'm not a shareholder of who's ever water it was, I assume I can't demand to see an estimate of how many reservoir fulls were lost plus the cost of the works.

Shareholders, five or six different contractors - doesn't that say a lot?

[Dazza]

We live on an island surrounded by water we as a rule have a wet season & also have a population census every couple of decades so we know roughly what our average usage is. Any good business who has this information should have a back up plan so hould thames water when water levels are low but the only contigency plan they have is slick advertising & stand pipes ! We live in a country which has to spend millions of pounds on flood prevention measures every year but also live in a country that has a shortage of drinking water, conspiracy go fish ! Must admit a capitalist myself but water is one industry which should have stayed nationalised !

Dazza

PS At least i still recieve my dividends regardless !

Edited by Dazza, 02 May 2012 - 01:08 PM.

[grahamb]

Yeah but the point is if it had stayed nationalised we would have been in an even worse state than we are now. That's why the companies that took over (esp Thames) are running to catch up.

[St. Lukes Railings]

grahamb = CEO of Thames Water

[Dazza]

Worse state than now ,people are dying thru flooding !

At least in 1977 we had prolonged period of sunshine & no rain now thats what i call a drought !

Dazza

PS GrahamB speculation !

[andreas]

1976 Dazza, you're obviously fixating on the Silver Jubilee.

AWS

[RetiredMember2]

Yeah but the point is if it had stayed nationalised we would have been in an even worse state than we are now. That's why the companies that took over (esp Thames) are running to catch up.

The privatisation of the water industry centred around reducing the role of the state and public sector borrowing not improving services or infrastructure. There is no evidence to suggest that "we would be in a worse state now" had it not been privatised in 1989. Pre-privatisation Thatcherite economic policies curtailed the abiltiy of the Regional Water Boards to raise finance for investment resulting in her government laying the RWAs out to dry ie spinning the old private panacea myth to the public!

So what have the UK private water companies done apart from significantly increase prices and profit? Not a lot. And post privatisation the new companies were hardly running to catch up more like throwing out the baby with the bath water!

"20. After privatisation profits started to soar in real terms[14]—between 1990/91 and 1997/8 the pre-tax profits of the ten water and sewerage companies increased by 147% [<a href="http://www.parliamen...htm#note15">15] at a time when customers faced continual price rises. Water and sewerage prices rose respectively by 36% and 42% from 1988-1998 (in real terms) " http://www.parliamen...97/59703.htm#a3

[Senor Buckethead]

I'm somewhat ambivalent about all this - I go along with a lot the boffins say about water run off, aquifers etc etc. and private or public the fact is that even if people have meters they are so damned water greedy. In the last couple of weeks have been to showcase homes of friends/relatives, two of which had five bathrooms.

If they can afford the (mostly vulgar) bathrooms these aqua-avaricious folk can probably afford the water but they have got to be as guilty as the water companies and their broken mains, surely? Why not limit the number of bathrooms in a house - we have so many other domestic environmental regulations now - can't see how a sensible one like this would add to the burden?

PS none of the folk in aforementioned houses gave the impression of being particularly clean!

[andreas]

It's all terribly complicated. I remember some friends who moved into a new house at Chatham Maritime a few years back. Although not a large property, one of its features was having three bathrooms. Which as they had no kids seemed to be perhaps rather excessive. Probably though what we do as householders is swamped by what happens in farming and industry. Though I get a bit sceptical about those types of statistics that it take ten squilion gallons of water to make a jar of coffee or a tee-shirt - doesn't any get reused?

The BBC try to make sense of it at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-17875456

[ChewderOde]

I reckon its a cumulative thing and the water table has shrunk and even though its rained alot lately and it seems pardoxical to have a hosepipe ban the authorities dont really have any agenda other than implementing restrictions to ensure we aint out in the streets with buckets - no conspirancy theories for me

[St. Lukes Railings]

Surely the number of bathrooms isn't the problem here. You can only go for a jack dash in one of them at a time

[Dazza]

Unless they rig them up to flush at the same time !

Bit of the old green monster if you ask me !

Dazza