Hosepipe ban

Cobble landing Filey there's been a right good leak for two weeks.
Maybe they're trying to dilute the waste water that's discharging aswell.

 

They take millions of litres from lake Windermere not sure about the other lakes though

 

Ok, I didn’t know that

 

I read an article in a national paper a few years ago about UK water storage, and some of the facts were interesting - the below being roughly what I remember:

Water consumption per household has actually decreased over the years, mainly due to more efficient appliances, better habits, and showers being a lot more popular these days as well as folk generally a bit more conscious about wastage - water butts for example. These savings offset a large proportion of new builds.

Timescales to build an operational reservoir were I think around 25-30 years. Location finding, planning issues, reviews, appeals, ecological arguments were all bigger issues than the costs themselves.

The biggest issue in the UK was leakage, which despite media reports, is often unavoidable due to clay shrinkage and ground movement which causes bursts during hot weather. Investment is ongoing on this throughout the UK. The emphasis supposedly being on upgrading supplies but also ensuring leak detection and repair rates are increased and speeded up.

This is a separate issue to sewage and waste issues.

 

Apart from one reservoir which was in progress before the sell-off, no new reservoirs have been built - or even started - in the 36 years since privatisation. Whilst domestic water consumption may have fallen on a per-household basis, overall domestic consumption has risen (due to population increase) and industrial consumption has soared. Aquafers- particularly in the South of England - have been at historically low levels over the last 20 years due to over-extraction and many rivers are also at historically low levels.

 

Just round the corner from Ullswater is thirlmere - a reservoir they constructed for the Manchester area. I was there last week (well, drove past it going to Grasmere), and it was the lowest I’d ever seen it.

They (water companies) could tap into natural lakes; they could flood more valleys and make more reservoirs - they could even build desalination stations.

Until there isn’t such a thing as executive bonuses and shareholder dividends for basic human commodities that won’t happen. Clean, safe water and sewage removal should not be a for-profit business. Dry weather in this country is still relatively wet on a global scale. We are an island surrounded by salt water with more inland freshwater than we could ever realistically need - yet we have hosepipe bans, 20-25% of our supply lost to leaks from aging and neglected underground infrastructure, our rivers and seas are pumped full of raw sewage all whilst share holders of PLCs have been given dividends and directors huge bonuses. They might be banned now - but it’s a dollar short and a day late.

Railways, water, other utilities, telecoms, mail - which privatisation has been in any way beneficial for anyone except the elite few at the top? Re-nationalise the lot. Take profit out of the equation. Pay the right people a good salary to fix it. Future proof all of them.

 

Think Lincoln and Portsmouth are having new reservoirs from memory, think they’ve started initial site preparation, but not sure when they’d ready for.

There was one planned for the South East, which is what the report focussed on. Think that has been delayed for the last 10 years I believe. But the delay wasn’t down to funding it - just planning and all the legislation you can imagine been thrown at it. We don’t help ourselves as a country sometimes in that respect.

 

Can’t argue with any of that. All public utilities should be taken away from the profiteers but I wouldn’t trust the government to get it right.

 

Yes it's a very long process, particularly with all the nimbys we have. This was also a major problem with HS2, in order to placate the Home Counties' nimbys, a lot of it had to be in deep cuttings or tunnels, massively adding to the costs and resulting in longer timescales for development.

My wife's sister lives near Downham Market (in Norfolk) where Severn Trent water is building a water abstraction plant and a very long pipeline to avoid building any new reservoirs in their catchment area.