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Flooding and drought?

I saved £250 as would many other who are careful with water. Many, many people would pay more, because the use more. Simple as that. Personally I think that the large buisness, that make massive use of water should pay rather more than a small buisness that hardly uses any. I cannot see that water supply should be part of social services in this day and age.

Overall reduced consumption of water would not reduce Water Companies profits as claimed by Ray Walton. Water companies are not directly affected by the market (yet). They are entirely regulated. Their profits are linked to investment. They are able to earn a fixed percentage of overall investment as profit. So profit is linked to allowable investment and meeting of certain government set targets. If the target is reduced consumption, the water company can actually earn more money by investing in ways of selling us less water.
Not in my view the best way of managing things. But with any monopoly regulation is required. In order to get people to invest in that monopoly they must have an ability to earn some return.

We could, of course, re nationalise water and run it like a social service. Every one pays a little and then everyone takes a lot.
 
Pete or anyone with a Water Meter installed .
Easy question: What is the cost of 1Litre of water via your Water Meter?
 
Actually my point was that anything which makes people start to think about their water consumption - such as making people pay for their usage by a meter - and therefore actually understand that water is a valuable resource and not to be wasted.

It certainly wasn't supporting the potential for excessive future profits by the water companies.
 
Nigel Gray said:
Actually my point was that anything which makes people start to think about their water consumption - such as making people pay for their usage by a meter - and therefore actually understand that water is a valuable resource and not to be wasted.

It certainly wasn't supporting the potential for excessive future profits by the water companies.
Click to expand...

I know Nigel, I was only pulling your leg fella :D Don't always take my posts too seriously. There are things that in my opinion need saying at times, but a lot of the rest is just keeping up the flow in a decent discussion :p

Cheers, Dave.
 
Ray Walton said:
Pete or anyone with a Water Meter installed .
Easy question: What is the cost of 1Litre of water via your Water Meter?
Click to expand...

United Utilities here in the North-West:

Water = 145.7p /tonne
Waste = 112.4p/tonne

Total 0.2581p/litre + 13p/day standing charge
 
stour has burst its banks, hamps avon close to doing the same. Bristol Avon is almost over the banks, Wye is around a foot off the top - yet we are in drought still?? I guess the drought is decided by the levels of the reservoirs and not rivers. Chew is still very very low.
 
When the country had had enough of high fuel prices and thought they could not take any more the Farmers and others blockaded fuel depots and the Government were shown that we could not take any more. The price of a litre of deisel at the time.....80p.....it's £1.53 round here now almost double...and what can you do about the price? You can cut down as much as you can but it's still £1.53.
 
Who once said ''Be carefull what you wish for '' Some Rivers are or nearly out of their banks and more rain on the way .
I still remember the floods in Gloucestershire July 2007 . Homes flooded , Loss of tap water , Having to collect bottled water , Business having to close due to lack of toilets . Nearly lost the Electric supply .
Will be ironic if we get another long wet summer .
 
Yorkshire Ouse has burst its bank so has the river aire, river wharfe, river don, river rother, river calder so no draught up here not sure about the Trent but the Rivers listed that have burst are ones I Pass on way to work.
 
I am a little surprised by a lot of what has been written here. The cost of treating water for potable purposes and the treatment of waste water is not cheap. Yes, the companies make profits but additionally some (most) are many 10s of £billions in debt to due to investment. Price is capped by OFWAT and poor performance incurs substantial fines. I could go on & on.

Very basic concept to grasp - until the ground waters have been substantially recharged then restrictions will remain in place.

You could try and wonder why I say this so explicitly - I have worked with the EA for nearly 10 years & now work at a reasonable level with a water company. But then again, I could be part of this conspiracy :confused:

Nice one for introducing some sanity here such as the comments made by Pete Marshall, Justin Hicks, Chris Guy and David Hall.

Not looking to wind anyone up here.

Cheers, Jon
 
I believe that essential utilities should be publicly-owned. We could run the supply of water and the dealing-with of our waste water in the public-sector and we would all be share-holders and we would all profit from the situation, rather than just the rich, or overseas investors.
Call me a marxist, but I believe that there are better ways of dealing with a water-shortage than creating a sense of scarcity and then arguing that water meters are part of the answer. We are a pathetic lot these days - we take it and take it and never question. We're not daft enough to realise that a lack of rain means that we might have to change our behaviour, but we are daft enough to swallow the line that, if we want a reliable water supply, we are going to have to pay more and more and more.
As for the river levels, anyone who knows anything about just in time production methods will know that a shortage of supply of raw material does not preclude the maintainance of an inventory, i.e. keeping the rivers flowing and allowing them to be untouchable. We have the power to decide how much water we keep in reserve, but we don't do that. If we were really using more water than the ground could supply, then our rivers would have run dry long ago. We are managing our water supply badly.

cheers
 
David, a few weeks ago they were saying that it would take 'weeks' of rain to put the situation right. Now it's six months. If you ask me the water companies are desperate for a drought to enhance the value of their 'product' in the eyes of the consumers.

Yes, I'm cynical.
 
Mike Webb said:
I believe that essential utilities should be publicly-owned. We could run the supply of water and the dealing-with of our waste water in the public-sector and we would all be share-holders and we would all profit from the situation, rather than just the rich, or overseas investors.
Click to expand...
Hardly a Marxist...water companies were publicly owned, as were many other basic industries for many years. It was during the time that they were publicly owned that the lack of investment was most marked. Investment came from the tax payer and tax payers are not inclined to vote for increases in taxation in order to invest in long term stuff. Politicians are also only elected for very short periods so tend to think mainly of short term solutions.

Investment is what is needed. This has to come from somewhere. If British industry and the British taxpayer are not willing to invest (as seems clear from everything that has happened for many, many years), then foreign investment must be attracted. Foreign companies and governments are not going to invest in British water companies unless they can make a return. Workers in the water industry are not going to do their jobs unless they are paid. It may all be a conspiracy, but if it is, it is the best known conspiracy ever. It's called capitalism. It's been around a very long time now. It makes no claim to morality unlike the various alternatives occasionally tried out at huge costs to the populations of those countries that experimented.
 
Hi Pete. It isn't a conspiracy - it's just human nature. I don't believe that an essential utility should be controlled by a private company - this is a strategic resource. Publicly-owned organisations are accountable to the electorate and the philosophy that says that profit and private enterprise is a healthy thing is a claim to morality in it's own right.
I'm not a communist - I can see the failings of that system as clearly as you. I think that a failure to understand that public service is a good thing and is not a sign of laziness (and an invitation to bankruptsy) is a barrier to progress. Just my view - there are ample examples of privatised organisations providing poorer services and still requiring public subsidy, e.g. railways.
Right-wing 'leave it to the markets and it will all be fine' is the reason why we have virtually no manufacturing industry left in the country.

cheers for your reply.
 
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