As I noted well over a year ago in a report that I published on that sector at that time, official reports written in 2021 suggested that the sector required more than £250 billion of investment to deliver clean water, without taking net zero obligations into account. That sum is bound to have increased significantly since then. There is no way on earth that the private sector is going to deliver that. But nationalisation is not allowed. So, the shit will carry on, in other words.
Second, a ‘not for profit’ alternative will be permissible. This is absurd: how is it to pay the return on that capital investment without sending water bills through the roof? Does Labour have the slightest idea about anything to do with economics?
There has to be that return on the £250 billion If there isn’t then there’s no point in making the £250 billion investment, is there?
The two choices are taxpayers or water consumers. That’s it. So, if the necessary return is too great for consumers then it’s not worth doing, is it?
I am a customer of one of the water companies; so, not a member of a minority, I suspect. I still struggle to understand why I should pay (a lot) more to satisfy the desire of a bunch of eccentrics to be able to bathe in any river at any time of year. I might struggle a bit less if they got rid of that shouty Irishman from their PR team.
THere are *several* ways on earth that the private sector can contribute that amount. It has invested £billions since privatisation and has improved drinking water and river quality as a result. Meanwhile the “not-for-profit” Welsh Water and the state-owned Scottish Water have poured significantly more sewage into rivers and lakes than the privately-owned companies in England.
I look a (brief) look at the report that Ritchie sited. It was actually £260 billion over a reasonable time period. The £260 billion is taken from a House of Lords report. The reasonable time period? Ritchie says about 10 years and it appears that he has pulled this out of the hat.
That would be £26 billion a year. However, this raises a few points:
1) Even if the water industry received that amount of money, could it actually spend it? Is there an workforce and an industrial infrastructure there to carry out that much work?
2) Why ten years?
3) If 10 years is not realistic (which it probably is not) then what would be a more realistic time time? if the time frame was 25 years then this would change things. That would mean the industry would be spending about £10 billion a year. That is a lot but potentially doable for the private sector.
4) Would it not be better to invest in research into new technology that would bring the costs down?
I suspect that Ritchie is choosing 10 years as the time period to rig the argument in his favour as he knows that the private sector could not raise £26 billion a year, but the government could. All very convenient.
How about being tough on shit AND tough on the sources of shit? As in, importing fewer?
Why do so many people pave over their front gardens, a major contributor to urban runoff and local flash-flooding? Yes, the roads are full of parked cars but might it also have something to do with parking charges? You could pay a couple of pikeys to tarmac your front lawn what it would cost for a year’s parking permit in Haringay. If I had a front lawn and didn’t have a garage I’d probably do exactly that.
@salamander
It would be totally impossible to spend that inside 10 years. Planning anything significant takes at least 25.
Seriously, the same shouty ecomentalists who are bleating about water quality round here are also into the 15th year of preventing planning approval for a new sewerage works to cope with the surging population.
@Swannypol
I suspect that Ritchie views government and the ability to pass legislation as a magical wand. If they wave the wand and change the law, then things happen automatically, as if Harry Potter cast a spell.
The last significant reservoir built in the UK was Carsington Reservoir in Derbyshire, which was completed in 1992.
In 1992 the UK population was 57.5m . It’s currently 67.9m (officially anyway).
In other news (as I saw this stat while looking for the above) the White British population percentage in London as fell from 60% in 2001 to 37% in 2021. 20 years FFS
Andrew C
I’m surprised the London % is even that. I was on a pretty full train at Barking station the other day and the number of white Brits I could see were fewer than the fingers on a normal hand. It looked like a cross between Dhaka and Ajuba.
To build a new UK-wide sewage system that would completely segregate sewage and rainwater would cost at least double the £260 billion quoted. Does any sane person believe that this would be the best way of spending half a trillion quid, even if we had it?
If the (private) water cos need to spend £250bn, than a nationalised water Co would need to do the same work. And so it would cost the taxpayer around £1tn