Hose pipe ban east and S.E.

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I'm in Yorkshire.

I can only get my water from Yorkshire Water.

I thought privatisation was all about choice?

Just like the energy companies, it's all one big cartel.

Did you really think that? ;)

Funny how you can buy gas, electric and telecomms from so many people, but water has to be sold by the water company supplying it...:rolleyes:
 
The reason you cannot choose is simple at present - there is only one network of pipes connecting you within a watershed and it would be profoundly too expensive to be able to connect you with another supplier without massive investment in a national ring network to trade. Moving water around in large quantities is economically and environmentally wasteful.

As water companies are natural monopolies, their return is strictly regulated.
 
The reason you cannot choose is simple at present - there is only one network of pipes connecting you within a watershed and it would be profoundly too expensive to be able to connect you with another supplier without massive investment in a national ring network to trade. Moving water around in large quantities is economically and environmentally wasteful.

As water companies are natural monopolies, their return is strictly regulated.

Only one set of gas pipes, electrical cables and phone lines ...
 
Only one set of gas pipes, electrical cables and phone lines ...

Have you tried shifting large quantities of water over long distances.

iirc, There is also a health issue about transporting water over long distances by pipe.

How are you fixed for a spot of legionella?
 
I'm in Yorkshire.

I can only get my water from Yorkshire Water.

I thought privatisation was all about choice?

Just like the energy companies, it's all one big cartel.

Privatisation of the water industry was like selling off the family mortgage. Decades of under investment ("no votes in sewage") meant bills had to rise and it was political suicide to retain it under government control.

Privatisation was not about competition in the water industry.
 
About time someone (an armchair engineer perhaps?) mentions leakage and how we should have zero leakage (and free water as it falls from the skies doesn't it?) because cost / benefit does not matter:rolleyes:


Hmmmm ...well an 'armchair engineer' might be asking why we can't have zero leakage...and there certainly appear to be plenty of 'armchair experts'...but anyone with actual experience would be asking why we can't get it to around 10% instead of hovering around 25%...


:rolleyes:
whose cost, whose benefit eh...follow the money
 
Only one set of gas pipes, electrical cables and phone lines ...

All of which are also economically regulated and monopolies (for which your supplier pays on your behalf - being to the National Grid for high power and high volume gas, and your local distribution company for local electricity and gas - you have zero choice about those), but with one critical difference - they all have national supply systems because shifting electrons and gas around is significantly cheaper to do than water. Water is vertically integrated because within a watershed it is a natural monopoly and is regulated as such.
 
Hmmmm ...well an 'armchair engineer' might be asking why we can't have zero leakage...and there certainly appear to be plenty of 'armchair experts'...but anyone with actual experience would be asking why we can't get it to around 10% instead of hovering around 25%...


:rolleyes:
whose cost, whose benefit eh...follow the money

Actually the Environment Agency does the cost benefit analysis. They have determined that the marginal cost of further expenditure on leakage reduction now exceeds the benefit. They are independent of the water companies and their investment requirements must be followed by the water companies.
 
Actually the Environment Agency does the cost benefit analysis. They have determined that the marginal cost of further expenditure on leakage reduction now exceeds the benefit. They are independent of the water companies and their investment requirements must be followed by the water companies.

Has that crucial information ever been printed in the Daily Mail?
 
Have you tried shifting large quantities of water over long distances.

iirc, There is also a health issue about transporting water over long distances by pipe.

How are you fixed for a spot of legionella?

What, like eighty odd miles from Wales to Brum? Or fifty miles ( with two more extensions still building ) around London? Those sorts of distances?

I don't think you mean Legionella ...

HSE - Legionnaires' disease - What is Legionnaires' disease?
 
The river Prang.

Drought-hit-river-in-Berk-007.jpg

Has it had an accident or is it perhaps the Pang, which joins the Thames in Pangbourne, you refer to?
 
All of which are also economically regulated and monopolies (for which your supplier pays on your behalf - being to the National Grid for high power and high volume gas, and your local distribution company for local electricity and gas - you have zero choice about those), but with one critical difference - they all have national supply systems because shifting electrons and gas around is significantly cheaper to do than water. Water is vertically integrated because within a watershed it is a natural monopoly and is regulated as such.


Due to the lack of investment at a national level...

Who paid to build the National Grid again?

Not convinced gas is cheaper to move than water...can't use gravity to move gas can you...
 
Actually the Environment Agency does the cost benefit analysis. They have determined that the marginal cost of further expenditure on leakage reduction now exceeds the benefit. They are independent of the water companies and their investment requirements must be followed by the water companies.

That's interesting, got a link?
 
Due to the lack of investment at a national level...

Who paid to build the National Grid again?

Not convinced gas is cheaper to move than water...can't use gravity to move gas can you...

Which is why all the water, electricity and gas companies are mandated to invest more, and their return is conditional upon doing so.

The National grid has had major investment pre and post privatisation, but only in the latter case was its ability to charge controlled by someone independent of it.

Gravity works both ways. Water has more mass than gas and people use much more of the former than the latter.
 
As Scotland is apparently rising by about 5mm per year, the South of England must be sinking due to the number of immigrants living there.
As water will always run downhill, there is only a need for the pipework to be in place and no need for pumping stations. Problem solved!
 
Due to the lack of investment at a national level...

Who paid to build the National Grid again?

Not convinced gas is cheaper to move than water...can't use gravity to move gas can you...

Carry a 25 litre bucket of water two miles up a 2% hill. Then do the same with a 25l bucket of gas. Which is easier?

Water is heavy stuff, with a lot of friction in the pipes.

Gravity only works downhill:)
 
That's interesting, got a link?

The Environment agency report on which that is based is no longer on their website, but the finding is summarised in the Ofwat analysis in advance of the 2009 price review, on their website here.
 

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