This bonanza was funded notoriously by raising charges to consumers at rates in the
This bonanza was funded, notoriously, by raising charges to consumers at rates, in the first few years, of up to 5 per cent more than inflation. What have we, the taxpayers and water customers, had in return? We have a more efficient water system, if by efficient you mean thinly-staffed. As taxpayers, in other words, we got less than nothing, yet five years later the companies were making profits of pounds 1.4bn between them. The shares have more than doubled in value while dividends to shareholders followed a steep upward curve and executive pay rises have been among the most scandalous in all the privatised sector.
Just before they were sold for pounds 5.2bn in 1990, the Government wrote off debts of pounds 4.9bn and injected pounds 1.7bn. As with the electricity suppliers, the big water companies in England and Wales were virtually given away. We are also increasingly enthusiastic gardeners, as the proliferation of garden centres demonstrates, and that is an addictive form of water consumption - some among us would forgo a lot of baths rather than see the allotment, the lawn or the tomatoes go thirsty. None of this means that those in charge of the water industry, and those who own it, do not deserve our wrath They do. As Nicholas Schoon reports on page 5, some of the responsibility lies with us: as private consumers, we now use far more water than the reservoirs are accustomed to coping with. We wash a good deal more than in the past and our dishwashers and washing machines consume more than their manual predecessors. The water industry has moved from public to private ownership but the ground rules about water have not changed.
If it fails to rain, as it has done over much of the country since the spring, then we are short of water. If we sprinkle our gardens we only aggravate that lack and bring closer the moment when someone who really needs the water goes short It may be infuriating, but it is a fact. And nor can we blame this state of affairs entirely on the water companies. After all we have put up with from the privatised water companies they have the nerve to tell us to conserve water. We pay our bills, don't we? And goodness knows they are big bills. It's enough to make you go out into the garden, turn the sprinkler on and leave it running all night This is a temptation we should resist.