Privatisation of water

According to Ofwat, the water services regulator for England and Wales, in 2021-22 one trillion litres of drinking water were lost due to leaks – that’s the equivalent of three and half Lake Windermeres.

At the other end of the process, the group Surfers Against Sewage claims that in the same year water companies discharged untreated sewage into seas and rivers around the UK on 770,000 occasions, with potentially devastating effects on the natural environment and on people’s health.

It’s worth bearing in mind that when the thenConservative government privatised the ten regional water authorities in 1989, a

By CLAUDIA SORIN West Dorset Labour Party

large part of the rationale for the sale was that private investors would be able to solve the twin problems of leaky supply pipes and inadequate sewerage infrastructure, which the public sector could not afford to do.

Let us just say that they have been slow to make progress on either issue, and successive governments have not been very effective in pushing them to do more.

The government is now finally forcing water companies to take action: they are being required to spend £56bn over 25 years would nonetheless contribute to the solution and I would welcome them. However, the real solution to our housing crisis does lie within the power of Dorset Council. This is for the Council to start building its own homes for rent by a Council owned company. They could start by doing a survey of all the brownfield sites they own, and then design their own high density, energy efficient accommodation for rental to people on low incomes. As the company would be a ‘not for profit’ organisation any surplus money from the rents received, after paying for staff and maintenance, would be used for future builds.

Not only is such an initiative legally possible, there is funding available. I know of many Dorset councillors who have been calling for this to happen for some time. And not just opposition councillors. At a recent meeting of Dorset Council’s People and Health Scrutiny Committee an otherwise ‘right of centre’ Conservative councillor called for the Council to own and manage its own accommodation for local people. The private rental system is broken, and many local people, especially young people, do not earn enough to even consider buying their own property. Dorset Council needs to help meet this basic human need and enable our young people to have the option to remain within the communities they have grown up in.

Authorities A Disaster

to reduce raw sewage discharges from storm overflows. Improvement will not be rapid; the government’s plan is to eliminate 75% of storm overflows by 2035, and 80% by 2050. Moreover, it is not the companies’ profits that will take the hit – it is consumers who will foot the bill. Across England the plan will add on average £42 a year to water bills by 2050 compared with now, but customers who live in areas served by companies with the biggest investment programmes will pay up to three times as much. That includes Wessex Water, which serves all of West Dorset. Like most of the water industry, it is in foreign ownership. An inquiry last year by a national newspaper found that only 10% of the industry is owned by UK firms. Wessex Water is wholly owned by YTL Corporation, a Malaysian infrastructure conglomerate which is publicly traded on the Malaysian and Tokyo stock exchanges. It is perhaps not surprising that these investors have not cared very much about sewage on our coasts and in our rivers.

There will be no quick fix for years of economic mismanagement, but only when we have a Labour Government will we have a chance of restoring reliable and affordable public services that work for all.