That is wealthy, isn’t it? Water UK has apologised for pouring hundreds of thousands of tonnes of uncooked sewage into our rivers and seas, inflicting a dirty cocktail of air pollution. “We get it” they inform us. We must always have acted sooner. We’re dedicated to creating amends.
Oh actually? You instantly “get it” after knowingly pumping the stuff into our rivers 825 instances a yr, for an unimaginable 1.75 million hours? You get it after obscene dividend payouts to your shareholders, price £1.4 billion final yr alone, and gobsmacking salaries on your bosses? Are we meant to thanks?I believe we all know the reply. We all know full effectively that the water trade of England and Wales – the one totally privatised such trade on this planet – has been taking us for fools, whereas lining its personal cavernous pockets.
In accordance with the figures simply launched, United Utilities is the worst offender for sewage dumping. Have you learnt what their CEO, in accordance with the Financial Analysis Institute, earns yearly in money, equities and pension?
Brace your self. It’s greater than three million quid.
But these firms now have the sheer gall to demand that we, the hard-pressed shoppers, pay for the sewage system upgrades by increased payments. Yup, which means we're paying for his or her failure.Some components of the nation have suffered the brunt of all this mismanagement. In Tunbridge Wells, Kent, a lot of the inhabitants spent days on finish within the coldest a part of final winter with zero operating water due to leaks that hadn’t been fastened.
It was simply earlier than Christmas, they usually actually needed to queue up in a Tesco automobile park ready for bottled water to be handed to them out of the again of lorries. But the typical Southern Water invoice nonetheless shot up by practically 10 p.c in April.
You don’t should be an ideological socialist to work out that the system of privatised water firms making enormous income to handle the very stuff of life simply isn’t working.
Both the regulator, Ofwat, must learn to chew, or there will probably be rising demand for the entire shebang to be taken again into public management. To be frank, authorities possession might hardly do any worse.Okay, we all know it isn’t easy to offer water companies in a rustic that has expanded its inhabitants by round eight million folks since 2000, most of them stuffed into England quite than the remainder of the UK.
We perceive the challenges of sustaining a creaking Victorian infrastructure.
However for God’s sake shouldn’t the water firms prioritise steady, reasonably priced provide and a clear setting over fat-cat salaries and huge dividends? Isn’t that the entire level of a utility? Shouldn’t Ofwat insist on it, with significant penalties for failure?
Nick Ferrari mentioned on the ’s Query Time final week that water bosses ought to be chucked in jail in the event that they proceed these disgusting practices.
Tens of millions of us would agree that the mere risk of jail would, in a single day, cease all of it lifeless in its tracks, although we additionally know that it’s unlikely ever to occur.
However what we are able to demand is that dividend payouts stop till the water firms type out this abhorrent mess that's fairly actually soiling our nation.
Till that second, any cleverly worded “we’re so sorry” from former Blairite Cupboard minister Ruth Kelly, now a believable sounding water trade boss, isn’t well worth the paper it’s printed on.
So far as the British persons are involved, and like Britain’s rivers, an apology simply received’t wash.