Nobody has blamed the immigrants yet?!?!
We need to pay £10bn to clean up their mess
- Thread starter SirGalahad
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Exactly what Starmer is proposing
"Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at Oxford university, said the announcement by Water UK was “more spin than apology”.“If they are sorry for their many failings I want to know what they are going to do to put it right,” he said.
“If the answer is that they are going to get the regulator to approve another £10bn to be funded from customers, that doesn’t sound like an apology. That sounds like a very profitable option for them.”
“If the answer is that they are going to get the regulator to approve another £10bn to be funded from customers, that doesn’t sound like an apology. That sounds like a very profitable option for them.”
Across the country this weekend campaigners will paddle out on their local rivers or beaches to warn water companies they will not put up with another summer of sewage pollution.
Ruth Kelly, the head of the industry body Water UK...reverted to dubious claims about the Victorians as she promised the new investment. “These are 150-year-old pipes, and sewage systems that need to be upgraded,” she said. The Victorian myth has been used for years by water companies as an excuse not to act because the task was just too great.
In fact pipes, sewage and treatment plants mostly date back to the 1970s and 80s. In the more than three decades since water was privatised, there have been many opportunities to invest the necessary money to keep modernising, but as some water bosses now admit, they have instead overseen decades of underinvestment, while taking huge salaries – in one case £3.9m – and paying dividends to shareholders which last year reached £1.4bn.
It is the customer who will be paying for this trebled investment, which water companies should have been carrying out for years to fulfil their legal duties. And it has always been the customer who pays, as the once publicly owned utility has morphed over the decades into a highly complex, opaque financial instrument set up to maximise returns for investors.
So far have some water companies been from carrying out their legal duties that six of them are at the centre of a major investigation into suspected illegal activity by Ofwat. And it was only two years ago that Southern Water was fined a record £90m for illegally dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected waters amid a reprimand from the judge for its repeated criminality.
Analysis@theGuardian
Ruth Kelly, the head of the industry body Water UK...reverted to dubious claims about the Victorians as she promised the new investment. “These are 150-year-old pipes, and sewage systems that need to be upgraded,” she said. The Victorian myth has been used for years by water companies as an excuse not to act because the task was just too great.
In fact pipes, sewage and treatment plants mostly date back to the 1970s and 80s. In the more than three decades since water was privatised, there have been many opportunities to invest the necessary money to keep modernising, but as some water bosses now admit, they have instead overseen decades of underinvestment, while taking huge salaries – in one case £3.9m – and paying dividends to shareholders which last year reached £1.4bn.
It is the customer who will be paying for this trebled investment, which water companies should have been carrying out for years to fulfil their legal duties. And it has always been the customer who pays, as the once publicly owned utility has morphed over the decades into a highly complex, opaque financial instrument set up to maximise returns for investors.
So far have some water companies been from carrying out their legal duties that six of them are at the centre of a major investigation into suspected illegal activity by Ofwat. And it was only two years ago that Southern Water was fined a record £90m for illegally dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected waters amid a reprimand from the judge for its repeated criminality.
Analysis@theGuardian
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The Cons only care about one thing:
What's in it for me?
How can I line my pockets?
They are only there because their greedy snouts smell the opportunity to make money.
I don't see why it's political. Labour had 13 years to change the system but didn't. This is all just more of what's always gone on since the whole privatisation nonsense.
The fines were trivial, so it was cheaper to pay the fine than to invest. Now the fines are being increased massively, they're all throwing their toys out of their prams. They need shutting down, the entire concept of giving private companies an absolute monopoly for the most essential public service that supports life itself is just insane. But not many protested when people were buying shares and pretending to be yuppies in the 1980s.
The fines were trivial, so it was cheaper to pay the fine than to invest. Now the fines are being increased massively, they're all throwing their toys out of their prams. They need shutting down, the entire concept of giving private companies an absolute monopoly for the most essential public service that supports life itself is just insane. But not many protested when people were buying shares and pretending to be yuppies in the 1980s.
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Just seen UU (what used to be North West Water) on the news saying they invest 3 times the amount that shareholders receive in their infrastructure.
He followed it by saying that they are planning to invest 3 billion in storm overflows.
Planning? You mean they haven't started yet?
He followed it by saying that they are planning to invest 3 billion in storm overflows.
Planning? You mean they haven't started yet?
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Damn I was starting to agree with you until you blurted out that load of ****e. Idiot.
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Thick as mince as usual.
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UK regulator relaxes effluent rules as water treatment firms begin running out of chemicals
A SHORTAGE of chemicals used to treat wastewater in the UK has led the Environment Agency to relax rules and allow facilities to release untreated effluent. A lack of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers is causing chemicals supply chains to fail, an industry group has warned.
www.thechemicalengineer.com
Fred are you a Brexxer?
If you want ****e pop down to your local River - loads floating around next to the Brexit Unicorns prancing in the fields.
Don't be daft Galley - I do not have a choice of water companies so privatization was not about choice but funding. Its failed everyone knows that. Including the 14 years of the last Labour Gov. What did they do?
However I am old enough to remember the public owned water companies who measure their success in water supplied. That's all water not just out of peoples taps and the waste in between the supply network and tap - well lets ignore that. Then there is the longer term investment - this just did not happen.
What we have is not sustainable but the public sector did equally not have the answer.
However I am old enough to remember the public owned water companies who measure their success in water supplied. That's all water not just out of peoples taps and the waste in between the supply network and tap - well lets ignore that. Then there is the longer term investment - this just did not happen.
What we have is not sustainable but the public sector did equally not have the answer.
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Funding you say? Can private companies raise finance at lower rates than the Government?
So your argument about funding is pure BS - it was just Thatcher obsessions with selling off public assets.
Why do you keep falling for simple BS lies time and time again?
You are either too young to remember, or so blinded by your prejudice you did not see the position . Funding was the key to privatization of the water companies. Yes that has failed. Public ownership failed so in your blind rant maybe you can suggest a solution?
As an aside when will the socialists stop blaming their failings on Thatcher? Remember how many years of Blair after Thatcher why didn't the labour party fix everything and create a load of unicorns then?
As an aside when will the socialists stop blaming their failings on Thatcher? Remember how many years of Blair after Thatcher why didn't the labour party fix everything and create a load of unicorns then?
14 years on, and the tory horn-smokers are still blaming Tony.
English water companies have taken on large amounts of DEBT
When privatised they were debt-free. Thirty years later, the big nine companies have £54bn in debt.
In the same time frame, £66bn has been paid out in dividends.
Can you guess who pays the interest on the debt?
Can you guess who received the dividends?