Apart from the minor irritation of Mr Whitehouse never losing an opportunity to employ his arsenal of northern stereotype accents , it was a well put together programme highlighting an appalling situation of what in effect is legally sanctioned pollution . It has to be said however that to some degree we brought this situation on ourselves by voting in a government who flogged everything off ,encouraging us all to by shares in the brave new world of privatisation , millions of us literally bought in to this for short term gain . Decades down the line we are now living with this mess .Much as I would like to see it happen , full re nationalisation of public utilities like water is unlikely to happen , so what next ?
In the short term the EA , the people who are supposed to look after our waterways need to get their act together , from my experience they are generally poor in their core role of responding to incidents of pollution . I can recall at least 3 incidents where I observed pollution of my local rivers and reported it to them , their response ? Nothing , nobody turned up , nobody reported back to me on any proposed or planned actions , doesn't exactly fill you with confidence does it ? In terms of stopping the raw effluent pollution , the only solution will be to somehow re direct some of the vast profits made by the water companies in to improving the infrastructures so that raw sewage discharge is stopped .
The programme explained that this discharge happens because the water treatment facilities cannot cope with the demand to treat effluent , change this situation and we may be on the right track . This will require legislation to allow central government to have some influence / control over the water companies and their policies and procedures compelling them to invest in improving the treatment and discharge facilities .
Pressure groups that highlight pollution also need to act in unison rather than in isolation , a unified voice of anglers , swimmers , surfers, wildlife organisations etc can create more of a stink [sic] and effect change if they are of one voice and pool their resources to force government in to making change . History shows if politicians of whatever hue see votes there to be won or lost they WILL act , now is the time for us to apply pressure given that we will have to have an election in the next couple of years . Remember it was privatisation and the chance to make profit that charmed millions to vote in the government that largely created this situation in the first place . Power to the People !
