House of Lords Committee - Water bills should rise to limit consumption.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

The report by the Lords committee, called An Indispensable Resource, said that “urgent action is required” to protect the availability and quality of water in the UK and other European countries.

One of the its proposed solutions is for “the cost of water to rise”.

Lord Carter of Coles, the chairman of the committee, said: “Governments across the EU need to act decisively, and grasp the nettle of allowing the cost of water to rise where other measures fail to overcome water scarcity.”

Any increase in water bills would increase the financial pressure on already-stretched households.

Water bills in Britain have already hit record levels.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9241884/Water-bills-should-rise-to-protect-resources-says-Lords-committee.html

I'm sure Graham will be delighted with this report, as house of Lords committees are his favourite source.

But on a more serious note, isn't it obvious that if there is a shortage of water, then increasing the price will reduce consumption and allow for a resource in short supply to be allocated?

Kind of like..... houses. :whistle:

Graham_Devon

Well no, not like houses.

You can't build water. Not that I'm sure we have a resource shortage. More a lack of investment from the private companies to harvest is efficiently, and a lack of political ambition to tackle it....so that's like houses.

Good to see you talking of resources though Hamish. Maybe you'll quieten down a little on your population ramping quest!

Next...

dori2o

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Well no, not like houses.

You can't build water. Not that I'm sure we have a resource shortage. More a lack of investment from the private companies to harvest is efficiently, and a lack of political ambition to tackle it....so that's like houses.

Good to see you talking of resources though Hamish. Maybe you'll quieten down a little on your population ramping quest!

Next...

Exactly.

You have to ask, where has the money that has been paid to these companies for many decades, gone?

We do of course live on an island. That obviosly means we are surrounded by........... you've guessed it, water.

Yes it's salt water, but with the technology advances we have made in the past 50 years tere must be a cheap/cost effective way of filtering the water.

Similarly with rain water, are reservoirs the most economical way of collecting and storing water?

Despite it feeling that way, the UK is not actually that wet, last stats suggest we are 48th wettest out of 95 countries.

Therefore there i surely a need to improve the rate of collection from rainfall.

I have no problem paying more for water, but so long as the money IS spent on investment of the existing network and investing in ways of collecting/filtering water, and not on increased salaries of bosses.

Graham_Devon

We have plenty of rainfall, what we don't have is a increase in the ability to actually harvest and store it.

That's why we keep getting the "wrong kind of rain" problems where rain doesn't fall steadily and to a pattern, hence flooding followed by hose pipe bans 3 months later.

Any infrastructure increase is met with a threat that bills will have to increase as a result. That's fine, but it's particularly difficult to do at the moment and particularly difficult to sell when each and every year, profits of the water companies rise.

It's the same with the national grid. Everyone knows it's a problem, and has been a problem mounting for a long time. Profits and bills keep increasing, but that's the only thing that increases.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Well no, not like houses.

You can't build water. .

You can build the infrastructure to more efficiently collect, process and distribute it.

It's laughable to suggest we have an incurable shortage of water in Britain.

We may well have a shortage in some places, and a surplus in others, but building more infrastructure can sort that.

And an increase in price will enable more investment and more building of what is needed to fix the shortage.

Just like..... houses. :whistle:

coastline

It was suggested that every household should have a water meter within a decade a few years ago...the aim was to reduce the usage by 10%.
The cost of £200 would be passed onto the consumer over a period of time..
More than likely this was to try an combat the shortage on the cheap...as storage and leakage have been an ongoing problem.
Privatised in 1989 which left the taxpayer short and even the debts of £5bn were written off...nearly 25 years later the 100 yo system is still a problem..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatisation_in_England_and_Wales

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Not that I'm sure we have a resource shortage. .

But a House of Lords committee says we do....

It's an official parliament document and everything.

Unless you're saying...... that your new favourite source might be wrong? :eek:

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And an increase in price will enable more investment and more building of what is needed to fix the shortage.

Just like..... houses. :whistle:

No, that's not that you started out saying.

You said an increase in price to reduce use on current supply.

They don't need to increase prices to invest. No other private business bar the energy companies could do this. They either invest in capacity to meet demand, or die. Competition sorts that. This is how it works in many countries, countries which have far superior systems to ours....look at railways....

If we had competition in water and electric etc, you can bet your bottom dollar companies wouldn't be saying to their customers "hey, you'll have to pay, we've decided to renovate the offices". All they could do is increase prices enough to keep customers and pay for expansion.

This isn't like houses at all Hamish. You are talking nonsense again. The only similarity is the government intervention surpressing normal aspirations to build to profit. No need if you can just charge more with government backing.

Going4TheDream

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You can build the infrastructure to more efficiently collect, process and distribute it.

It's laughable to suggest we have an incurable shortage of water in Britain.

We may well have a shortage in some places, and a surplus in others, but building more infrastructure can sort that.

And an increase in price will enable more investment and more building of what is needed to fix the shortage.

Most businesses have a plan for investment within their business model, seems that the energy suppliers (green tax) and perhaps now water companies may well expect us to pay a further 'tariff' to our bills for investment for 'their business and ultimately their profits' and the consumers don't actually get anything more for their money?

As others have already suggested 'where has the money gone?'

grizzly1911

Going4TheDream wrote: »

Most businesses have a plan for investment within their business model, seems that the energy suppliers (green tax) and perhaps now water companies may well expect us to pay a further 'tariff' to our bills for investment for 'their business and ultimately their profits' and the consumers don't actually get anything more for their money?

As others have already suggested 'where has the money gone?'

Higher prices under the guise of investment = stealth tax.

Where is the money going?

Severn Trent delivers on dividend promise


Water utility Severn Trent (SVT) stuck to its inflation busting income promise by announcing an 8.2 per cent boost to the interim dividend on a solid set of results that were slightly ahead of expectations.

http://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/2012/11/27/shares/news-and-analysis/severn-trent-delivers-on-dividend-promise-oQyOslXHh01SKS9qXkobzH/article.html;jsessionid=7B06B47BFC6B5341B41606762A2A3367.mps-apr-01-8104



Committed to dividend policy of growth of RPI+3% per annum to March 2015
Current year (2011/12) dividend = 70.10p, +7.7% y-o-y, 4.5% yield* FY 12/13 dividend = 75.85p, +8.2% y-o-y, currently 4.9% yield*



http://www.severntrent.com/upload/pdf/SevernTrentA4_v05_singles.pdf


Don't worry though just think of all those pension funds benefiting so that high quality returns can be paid out in x years time.

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

We have plenty of rainfall, what we don't have is a increase in the ability to actually harvest and store it.

Much is pumped from rivers. Storage is an impractical solution.

Use less.