leaks

 

we’ve had a bit of rain: we still have a drought situation.

we are going to have more rain, but we will still be in a drought type situation.

how do i know this? thames water has told us. 

in a recent advert in the london evening standard they have taken out a full page advert that says “rain or shine – please always use water wisely”. they are even offering free water-saving gadgets for all their customers. that is nice of them.

one thing they are not going to do is meet their leak reduction targets. so while they ask their customers to use water wisely they are still leaking some 600 million litres of water a day (which is an improvement on the situation in 2006 when it was over 800 million litres a day).

ofwat (the water regulator) has ‘forced’ thames water to invest some of its own money, i.e. profits, into improving their leakage prevention.

don’t worry too much for thames water though they made a chunky profit last year and will do ok this year even if we save water because they put their prices up. this is an example of how a private business is so much better than a publicly owned one. even though it is inefficient and wasteful it can still make money for its shareholders. how does it do it? by making us pay more for the service.

maybe if thames water actually took their own message to heart and conserved water they could still make a very substantial profit and lower bills. all it takes is a little bit of investment and will to do it – you know the sort of things the conservatives are always telling us that private companies are so good – yet in practice they seem so so bad at.

just remember that while you are saving water – thames water is pissing it away.