ARE HIGH WATER BILLS GREEN?

ARE HIGH WATER BILLS GREEN?
By Nicholas Newman
‘Southern England is suffering one of the driest summers on record, since 1933’, reports Ofwat the water regulator. So it has not been a good summer for the enthusiastic hose pipe user watering his plants or washing his car. Every week - news of another part of the country becomes subject to a drought order while complaints grow of water companies profiteering while failing their job to do their job properly of tackling these leaks.

Demands grow throughout the country that this profiteering must be stopped; utilities must bring to an end the practice of paying their Chief Executive (CEO) seemingly exorbitant salaries. The trouble is compared to other people working for major companies Thames Water (TW) CEO salary is moderate, only £800,000 per annum, little more than a premier league football player earns in four months. Yet the footballer does not have the problems of managing a £6bn investment project serving 13m customers. Then their accusations that with water bills increasing by 21% and profits up 6.1% last year that Thames is making excessive profits. But in terms of any similar sized business, its income levels and costs are reasonable if it is to be able to afford the massive £6bn in investment in its time expired supply network.

Demands that Thames should have moved ahead earlier ignores the time needed to launch such a large scale project. While criticisms about the scale of the scheme ignore that the country is experiencing a construction boom, the civil engineering sector is very tight at the moment, even with the import of expensive expertise from abroad.

If Thames critics were really serious in aiding Thames efforts to get the job done. Politicians like London Mayor Ken Livingstone would support Thames in its plans for a water desalination plant at Becton and locals living by the site of a proposed reservoir at Marsham would stop their protests which have managed to delay planning approval for a new reservoir new Marsham in Southern Oxfordshire. Both these projects if approved would go along way in preventing a repeat of hose pipe bans that are affect much of the Thames Valley. As for the Government, it is time the got their finger out and reformed the planning system, so as to cut the costly delays which under the present system mean it can take fifteen years for a scheme to come to fruition.

On our roads already the impact of road works is making life a nightmare at rush hour, if Thames did find the skilled men to carry out an increased rate of investment, we would be prepared to grin an bare it the added resultant delays – I sincerely doubt it. No if we are going to avoid the prospect of standpipes in the streets, I suggest you think like with energy how you can cut your water consumption and bills. If this means getting a water metre, stop using the dish washer, showering with a friend to save water. I suggest you follow Thames Water advice; it will not only save you money, but is green as well.

Energy

The long-running skirmishes between the EU and the French government have again been making the news, with Brussels arguably coming out on top in the latest tussles.
The EU's uncompromising competition supremo Neelie Kroes may well have been heartened by comments from French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has told Le Monde newspaper that there are serious doubts emerging about the viability of the contentious Suez-Gaz de France merger. Mr Sarkozy told the paper that vital deadlines for the merger-cum-privatization could be missed because both the president and prime minister 'are scared to move on a single issue'. The deal has been roundly criticized by other member states as a protectionist move orchestrated by Paris to create a French energy champion.
Then, to add insult to injury, the European Commission announced that it is to investigate issues of illegal subsidy and excessive payments in the country's savings market. Ms Kroes feels that the French state may have breached EU policy in its dealings with three mutual lenders that are allowed to offer the popular 'livret A' and 'livret bleu' savings accounts.
Taken together then, the EU could be seen as striking a welcome blow for open borders and free trade this week. However a more serious test of the state of Europe's free market ideals would come if Russian energy behemoth Gazprom mounts a bid for UK gas player Centrica - not such a remote possibility if remarks made by Gazprom's top brass at a conference this week are anything to go by.