Water companies have apologised for repeated sewage spills and pledged to invest £10bn this decade in an attempt to quell public anger over pollution in seas and rivers.
...of ours. Of course.
Shareholders in water companies will initially fund the investments. However, the costs will be recouped from customers through unspecified increases in their bills determined by regulators, in a move which threatens to add further pressure to household costs.
Is anyone surprised? You shouldn't be.
I wouldn't mind so much if they were investing it in the supply itself, but they will keep on loosing millions of gallons, bring in hosepipe bans after record wet months and the Government will keep blaming it on climate change while threatening water rationing.
ReplyDeleteThe consumer pays. That's it. The water is free, and you pay to have it treated to potable standards and delivered to your house, then given some sort of treatment when it is discharged back into the environment. What treatment you get depends on what you pay.
ReplyDeleteIf you nationalise the Water Companies so that they don't pay their excess profits to their nasty shareholders, you will get a less efficient service which generates no profits at all, or even losses. Then, the costs of improved treatments will come from the Government, or rather from you the taxpayer, with a percentage creamed off to pay for bureaucrats in place of those nasty shareholders. Remember that when the Water Companies were not-for-profit, the standard treatment for wastewater was to discharge ALL raw sewage into the sea in coastal locations, or much of it untreated into rivers. After all, why not let fish eat shit? It's what the government expects taxpayers to do.
"Is anyone surprised? You shouldn't be. "
ReplyDeleteWell who should pay for the disposal of the public's sewage? Martians?
If the public don't like how things are done now, and want a more expensive way of doing it, then they'll have to pay for it. People have to pay for everything - companies are legal fictions, they don't exist. Either customers pay, or the taxpayer pays (which is the customer again). You could try asking the shareholders to pay, but demanding that would tend to result in no sewage disposal at all, as they'd all stop doing it. No-one is going to want to own a business that just involves them in spending out money for no return.
Sewage disposal is pretty much the ultimate in equality. We all sh*t the same amount, rich and poor, and we all do it every day, from cradle to grave. So the bill for dealing with it falls on us all equally. If we want sparkly clear river free of all sewage when it p*sses down with rain, then we collectively will have to fund that.
The water companies have paid dividends of 65.9 billion pounds and have taken on debts of £54 billion at the same time, and paid themselves massive bonuses like they are financial geniuses for doing it. The whole thing literally fucking stinks. It costs them less to lose the water from leaks than it does to fix them so they aren't bothered, then they restrict supply. Heavy rainfall should not increase the amount of water going into the waste water system, but until rainwater is prevented from going into the sewers, nothing will change. The whole thing is a complete mess.
ReplyDelete"I wouldn't mind so much if they were investing it in the supply itself..."
ReplyDeleteQuite!
"If you nationalise the Water Companies so that they don't pay their excess profits to their nasty shareholders, you will get a less efficient service which generates no profits at all, or even losses."
But what about Northish's point below?
"Sewage disposal is pretty much the ultimate in equality. We all sh*t the same amount, rich and poor..."
Another good point. But it's the greed Northing points out that proves hard to swallow.
"The water companies have paid dividends of 65.9 billion pounds and have taken on debts of £54 billion at the same time, and paid themselves massive bonuses like they are financial geniuses for doing it. "
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