Water should be nationalised

The following paragraoh from the Guardian, came about through the activities of ‘ Windrush against Sewerage Pollution’
It shows that the water companies have been dumping sewerage into our water ways but charging us for the privilege over many years. At the same time paying their senior staff and shareholders well.
From the Guardian,
“ The next month, all of the water companies bar one (the small Welsh provider Hafren Dyfrdwy) admitted their treatment works might have been non-compliant. The EA said its investigation into the information provided by those companies would require examining billions of data points and could take two years, but preliminary checks suggested “widespread and serious non-compliance”.
Sickening eh!

As someone who worked for 28 years in a huge water company, both before privatisation and afterwards, I can honestly say the waste BEFORE privatisation was horrendous, too many staff, sometimes not enough work, people promoted just because they had been there longest not how efficient they were, answerable to no one and still no ability to choose who you got your water from. Just water rates to pay irrespective.
Things honestly became more efficient afterwards, promotion based on ability. Be careful what you wish for!

I agree whole heartedly- it an essential not a desirable - shamelessly exploited

As I understand, the flooding in West Yorkshire has increased since water privatisation: Previously, the waterways were dredged regularly. Since privatisation they have not been.

Yes, agree. And gas, electricity and transport. They are fundamental to basic living conditions. The trouble is, anyone who suggests such a thing is quickly labelled a ‘Marxist’!

The gas and water utilities should never have been privatised. I see that the NHS is being sold off to the US bit by bit by the back door. Just this last week the salaries and bonuses of the gas companies were announced . A company making billions of pounds profit should not be charging the people of this country large amounts for their utilities. Why can't they tighten their belts and use some of their profits to keep prices lower this year ?

We seem to have this idea that things ran so well when they were nationalised. They didn't. What is more, they were all run differently in different areas so although they were national companies, they had a certain amount of autonomy. I'm not saying they should have been privatised per se, I think we need an entirely different model to nationalisation where the Government cock it up and Privatisation where the money imbalance is so awful. A system where all profits are ploughed back into the infrastructure is needed with an overall strategy in place which is run by experts rather than the Government. I don't think the supply of water should be a political football as it is crucial to life.

Thank you Sylvia. I would love to know the silly reason they will give. Please tell them it makes one Grandsnetter really angry.

Margaret Thatcher is firmly to blame for starting this situation, she initiated this privatisation, it's been, water, electricity and gas being all energy, railways, transport of all types, even council houses, not to mention repeated attempts to slowly privatise the NHS, and the blessed TORIES ALWAYS THE DAMN TORIES, are still doing it. The only people gaining anything are the shareholders now, the prices may have risen, but to keep shareholders happy, prices are so high everywhere the entire economy has about slowed to a stop but shareholders are still exacting their pound of flesh, our flesh. On top of all this, salaries have sunk so low basic good living standards cannot be maintained, and talking about maintenance the privatised companies don't do more than to keep it ticking over ecause the shareholders want their cut. It's time to nationalise these services, run them properly, pay good living wages with the perks and pensions, and generate enough money to maintain everything to correct standards. But if Brits keep voting the TORIES IN ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, THE COUNTRY HAS NOT ONLY GONE TO THE DOGS ITS BEING EATEN ALIVE BY THEIR VORACIOUS APPETITES. evidence of this is the low wages, high living costs that the UK is world famous for.

I think recent events and price rises have shown that either NFP or nationalisation are required in not only water but railways, fuel, airlines and possibly electric and gas companies. In fact, any company that is posting huge profits at the moment while the rest of us are struggling to eat, let alone pay electricity bills. Directors who are getting massive bonuses and shareholders rubbing their hands with glee at their dividends should be ashamed of themselves unless they are donating most of it to charity. LOL.

I agree, but when I said that on another site, I was hung out to dry, so to speak. So glad to see grans have more sense than locals in my area.

People need to STOP VOTING TORY! Conservative ideology is ‘small state’; privatisation of all infrastructure including health and education. What we are seeing now is the result of 13 years of Conservative government. As long as people vote them into power, the country will continue to be run by the rich, for the rich. Anyone who votes Tory knows exactly what they’re voting for - it’s not a secret!

Disclaimer: If you're squeamish, look away now!

Not to the point but waste/used water, once it's gone down, is sewage, not sewerage. Sewerage i.e. the sewers and associated engineering hardware, is what carries the raw sewage to the sewage treatment works. Once there, it goes through the screens to remove wet wipes, dentures and other stuff that people shouldn't flush. It then goes into settling tanks. The settled sewage goes for biological treatment, either filter beds or 'activated sludge'. The sludge that settles out of it may be dried and used as fertiliser, digested to produce methane and electricity or discharged into the sea. The treated effluent may get tertiary filtration treatment before discharge to a water course. The various stages it goes through are monitored in the laboratory to check the effectiveness of the process. Reader, I was that analytical chemist. The really interesting samples were the trade effluents that came to the lab from industrial sites. One sludge I remember particularly always seemed to arrive during our coffee break. It came from a place where there was a cheesy biscuit factory and it was lively, yellow stuff. It used to burst out of its screw top plastic container and creep across the bench!

“Yorkshiregran” I agree about the waste of resources, pre privatisation. However, now is not 1989, when water was privatised. There wasn’t the scrutiny existing as there is now.

There are 400 plus Flood Action Groups in Britain and various River Trusts and Angling Clubs and hordes of people who “ wild swim” They all watch the rivers, planning applications, etc etc. And they are connected by various media portals.
It still takes a huge outcry to get anything done. BUT it’s still not the unquestioning situation that existed in 1989. The public are not quite as helpless as they were in 1989.

All public services should be nationalised. End of.

All privatisation does is rip off the very people they are supposed to be serving and make the rich richer.

maytime2

Welsh Water is a not for profit company, so I suppose it's halfway to being a nationalised company.

welsh water not for profit.. BUT it owns a subsiduary company that does all the work, gets paid a LOT
to do so, pays its many board members a fortune AND has shareholders, so not quite as transparent as it might appear....

I think that everyone ought to read the Guardian piece about the pollution of our waterways and the death of our rivers.

www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read/2022/aug/04/all

Then tell us how good privatisation of our water has been.

The 'inefficient' and 'overmanned' idea of our nationalised industries was promoted by the Thatcher government to justify privatisation, but at heart, what she wanted was to disassociate the state from the 'socialism' of nationalised industries and utilities.

Interesting conclusion from a 2004 paper looking at privatisation

the UK’s experiment with privatisation came after decades of relative economic decline. The election of Mrs Thatcher occurred because of growing public discontent with poor economic growth, rising inflation, growing unemployment and poor labour relations in the UK. Privatisation has not proved to be an economic miracle. But as part of the wider restructuring of the economy that occurred in the 1980s, involving tax cuts, public spending caps, trade union reform and the closure of declining industries, it has contributed to reversing the perception of the UK as ‘the sick man of Europe’ – albeit that the UK’s GDP growth rate has not noticeably increased as a result.

www.researchgate.net/publication/5001632_The_UK's_Privatisation_Experiment_The_Passage_of_Time_Permits_a_Sober_Assessment

One of the problems with privatisation has been that, contrary to the belief that 'markets' are self regulating and offer the best value for money, the 'market' doesn't provide a social service, so the government has to subsidise uneconomic services that are needed by the population, like rural bus services, and left to itself the market will abandon standards wherever it can get away with it. There is also a tendency for monopolisation by the big companies, which restricts consumer choice (which was supposedly a benefit of privatisation) . This means they must be subject to regulation by the state, so there is still a cost element for the state. And when the state cuts costs for political reasons, as evidenced in the Guardian piece I've linked to, regulation fails and standards fall.

i have considered this but as an ex civil servant I must disagree with this idea. Every government continually cuts public spending in real terms on public services . The government gives each service X millions but then the service HAS TO pay back at least £1-3 million. I remember for several years the meetings we had to try and find money to pay back to the treasure. Hence even if water was brought back into public ownership the service would not be helped. No new investment would happen. At least a private firm will be allowed to invest some money - even if shareholders have to receive a small dividend.

There's no saying that utilities would be run in the same way if renationalised, ordinarygirl.

Rameses

All public services should be nationalised. End of.

All privatisation does is rip off the very people they are supposed to be serving and make the rich richer.

Agree absolutely. One of the first things the directors of the newly privatised companies did was to give themselves massive pay rises - totally undeserved.

Is it not ironic that just as Margaret Thatcher's policies have been proven to have been so damaging to our country that Sunak and Truss are competing to claim they are the very incarnation of Thatcher?

varian - yes, it makes me shudder! I'm just astonished, though, by our 'problems' with water supply. We have plenty in the North and not enough in the South - so where are the pipelines? Where's our version of the Eastern Arabian aquifer (that supplies Bahrain etc.)? How come cruise ships use desalination but we don't? Are there going to be drought warnings and hosepipe bans every year now? If so, why are there no schemes or grants for rainwater harvesting? I'd happily store more for the garden - and to flush the downstairs loo - if some help were available.

fb.watch/eLO4ebJ2YS/

Petrol is also subsidised in France at the moment.

In Europe, only the Czech Republic has privatised water!

Surely the long term answer to a shortage of water is desalinastion stations? we are an island surrounded by water, other countries do it so why not us?