Let companies make water meters compulsory, MPs say - MSE News

I have written to Neil Parish MP Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee as follows:
I live in a Victorian terrace house, and the whole street has a system whereby each pair of adjacent houses is served by a SINGLE lead pipe with the pipe going to one house, through to the back, and then branches through the party wall to serve the adjacent house.

This scheme makes it impossible to individually meter each house without extensive replacement pipework to establish independent supplies, and this is the responsibility of the householder. In my case the house next door became a deceased estate and was bought by a developer, who got a quote from Thames Water for an independent supply, which was estimated at £4000 plus Vat because the water main is on the other side of the road. The developer declined to make this alteration. Subsequently and coincidently Thames Water detected a water leak under the pavement on the pipe serving both houses and this was repaired by their sub-contractors Essential Water Supplies. When this work was done I was surprised to find that the pipe going under the road was lead, and has an internal bore of 10 to 12 mm, which is really insufficient for two houses.

An elderly widow living alone further down the road suffered considerable distress when Thames Water put a meter in her home and her water bill doubled. She asked me for advice, and within 30 minutes after liaison with her neighbour I was able to demonstrate that the meter was also recording her "unmetered" neighbour's consumption. Thames Water then disconnected the meter rather than establish independent supplies at their expense.

My elderly mother living in Sherborne Dorset was unable to have a meter, because of a shared pipe with the neighbour. One of my daughters, living in a terrace house in Oxford, is in the same situation. My other daughter bought a flat in Twickenham, and had 4 cold water tanks in her attic serving 3 other flats, but all supplied by the same water main.

Did you Committee take evidence from householders and consider the practical and financial implications of this key recommendation? Do you have any data from the water companies as to how pervasive this situation is?

By way of contrast I draw your attention to a parallel issue with the Gas supply. In recent months a firm called KLT has been operating in our area to replace the gas main, and at the expense of SGN has and is replacing every single supply pipe to every single house and flat. In case of flats this has involved considerable pipework within individual properties. This illustrates that privatised utilities can operate in the interest of the domestic consumer.

[FONT=&quot]I do hope you will draw this to the attention of your committee.[/FONT]
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