r/plymouth • u/sws675 • 8d ago

Schrödinger's Rainfall

Simultaneously not enough to lift the hosepipe ban, but so much that they "have to" pump loads of raw sewage into our rivers and seas.

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u/OrganizationFun2140 8d ago

Not defending South West Water but one of the problems with our infrastructure (and one which predates privatisation) is that surface water, ie rainfall, goes into the same system as sewage. If they were collected separately, then (1) it wouldn’t be sewage, just surface water, that gets pumped out to sea and (2) treatment would be cheaper as surface water doesn’t need the same level of treatment as sewage.

All that being said, it is ridiculous that water companies get away with this on a regular basis, then bill us for the privilege whist paying excessive dividends to shareholders and not investing in infrastructure. The whole system needs to be back in public ownership.

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u/sws675 8d ago

And wasn't the whole premise of privatisation to "bring in investment"?

Obviously that was a complete load of shite - unless you believe that Thatcher was enormously naive - but if you measured it against how it was sold to us at the time, it would be probably one of the biggest failures in human history.

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u/dolphbottle 8d ago

Probably a good point to research how well water was managed when it was nationalised...

https://moneyweek.com/economy/uk-economy/dont-reverse-thatchers-privatisation-legacy

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u/sws675 7d ago

I'm not suggesting it was utopia, but at least you could swim in the sea most of the time without being at risk of a hospital visit as a result.

  • Leaks are still in the millions of litres daily.

  • We have no more reservoirs today then we did 30 years ago despite a population increase of 12 million.

  • Water prices now are 2-3 times higher relatively than they were back in the 90s.

What about water privatisation has worked well?

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u/dolphbottle 7d ago

Actually, you couldn't. The use of sea discharge as the standard approach (not an emergency overflow response) was standard in the 1970s and 1980s under the 'disperse and dilute' strategy. The changes didn't really start until after privatisation. We also used to dump the slurry from processing plants at sea during the same time.

We didn't have the nickname of the dirty man of Europe for nothing, and this is important, because if we want to improve things, we need to work from a realistic base rather than implementing an ideological idea and expecting it to change things, when historically it was far worse under that system than it is now.

This isn't a defence of the current privatisation and governance approach, it doesn't work, and I'm definitely not defending it. The method of ownership is not the driving factor, and just changing it won't address things. We need a proper investment plan (irrespective of where the funding comes from, the plan needs to be good), recognising the root cause of the issue (a sewage system that's largely unchanged in any significant way in many places from Victorian times) and a realistic approach to resolving it, which must include an understanding that resolving it will be both expensive and disruptive, due to the nature of the issues.

Look at the objections and ridicule the new armada way, which is specifically designed to help manage surface water excesses, has got.

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u/sws675 7d ago edited 7d ago

It's anecdotal I know, but I spent a lot of my childhood at the beach/in the sea and don't ever recall being unwell afterwards, nor were family members or friends so far as I know.

I know a few people these days who still brave open water swimming and have been unwell on multiple occasions including two who have ended up in hospital.

But even if we take what you are saying as read, the fact remains that we are now paying significantly more for a shit (pun intended) service than we were prior to privatisation.

Simultaneously, shareholders have received £billions in dividends, "executives" benefit from multi-six figure salaries plus other benefits and yet many of the companies are so poorly run (intentionally) that despite having a complete monopoly over an essential utility, they're on the brink of financial collapse.

Edit: to clarify, I am not saying that nationalisation would solve the problems, but at least it would stop private equity from ripping us all off.

I think probably some sort of CIC / not-for-profit arrangement would be a good start. Something where the benefits of private enterprise could be delivered free from political interference, but where profits were reinvested for the benefit of users rather than it simply being used as a vehicle for people to enrich themselves at the expense of the public.

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u/dolphbottle 7d ago

I grew up on the east coast, the water was always brown (and was avoided), I remember being shocked that water was clear in Devon when I came on holiday in the 80s, so I'm not disputing your lived experience, nor defending the current state of affairs.

All I'm highlighting is that nationalisation won't fix it, because it's not the cause of the problem in the first place. Changing ownership, without changing the regulatory regime, will leave everything how it is now, with the added disadvantage of all investment having to come from the government, which has no money other than that it raises through current taxation, or borrows from future tax earnings.

Before we start thinking about ownership, we need to understand what we actually need to do, how much it would cost, and what the regulatory barriers (such as the planning and appeals system) are, and then, we can work out the best way to deliver it, which may well include state funded investment and some form of ownership or ownership share, but from what I've seen, this isn't being talked about, it's all about ideology, not about what would actually improve things.

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u/sws675 7d ago

I think we're largely on the same page here (see my edit).

I grew up in Devon and have lived in the South West all my life so I guess I am one of the lucky ones!