the shizzle > get involved: access, environment, BMC
180k cragx Mill Bridge
Teaboy:
--- Quote from: Will Hunt on May 09, 2024, 06:36:26 pm ---Governments since have been able to enact the WFD and now the Environment Act (which, as I've said before, is a mind bogglingly costly thing to implement) and not had to worry about borrowing the money themselves to finance it, that's the water industry's problem.
--- End quote ---
And in the case of the £4.5 billion investment for the Thames sewage tunnel they solved this problem by getting the govt to back the required loan giving the private company preferential loans rates whilst passing the risk on to the public sector.
Water companies, whether privatised or not, will have the same income streams the difference being a nationalised industry would be spending all of that on delivering a service whereas a privatised one would spend it on delivering a service plus dividends to shareholders (£57 billion so far IIRC)
Will Hunt:
--- Quote from: Teaboy on May 09, 2024, 10:46:13 pm ---Water companies, whether privatised or not, will have the same income streams
--- End quote ---
I think your example of Tideway is the exception rather than the rule. And in that scenario the government isn't actually borrowing the money, it's backing it. Governments can borrow at lower rates but will they borrow, or rather, will they enact the legislation in the first place that means they will have to borrow. (2022 estimate for delivering the storm overflows bit of the Environment Act is £178bn, so add some inflation onto that. Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/624460a18fa8f527744f0655/storm-overflows-evidence-project-march-2022-addendum.pdf).
I'm not really arguing for or against privatisation, but I wish that people wouldn't talk about nationalisation like it's some silver bullet that will fix everything they don't like about the water environment. I'd love people to have clear ideas of what their aspirations for watercourses are, to know what it would take to get there, and to be cognisant of the challenges and implications (delivering the Environment Act is going to release A LOT of carbon. A LOT.) of getting there. I think the press have let the public down badly on this front. Just my opinion.
Dingdong:
--- Quote from: Will Hunt on May 09, 2024, 11:19:27 pm ---
--- Quote from: Teaboy on May 09, 2024, 10:46:13 pm ---Water companies, whether privatised or not, will have the same income streams
--- End quote ---
I think your example of Tideway is the exception rather than the rule. And in that scenario the government isn't actually borrowing the money, it's backing it. Governments can borrow at lower rates but will they borrow, or rather, will they enact the legislation in the first place that means they will have to borrow. (2022 estimate for delivering the storm overflows bit of the Environment Act is £178bn, so add some inflation onto that. Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/624460a18fa8f527744f0655/storm-overflows-evidence-project-march-2022-addendum.pdf).
I'm not really arguing for or against privatisation, but I wish that people wouldn't talk about nationalisation like it's some silver bullet that will fix everything they don't like about the water environment. I'd love people to have clear ideas of what their aspirations for watercourses are, to know what it would take to get there, and to be cognisant of the challenges and implications (delivering the Environment Act is going to release A LOT of carbon. A LOT.) of getting there. I think the press have let the public down badly on this front. Just my opinion.
--- End quote ---
Like you say, that's your opinion. Public utilities should all be state owned to remove any semblance of profiteering first of all. You also state that the money will come from the public purse but that's already what's happening anyways as the water companies operate from profit they make from us, the public. The only difference would be that instead of shareholders pocketing 70m every year that extra money could go towards offsetting or capturing that extra carbon from delivering the Environment Act.
Also if the press were doing that piss poor of a job communicating issues then surely you guys as private entities could sue newspapers for libel. Except the issue is that you can't because no lies have been told, we can see that from the fact that you're getting fined millions.
SA Chris:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv266nqq48xo
Not content with letting them shit on our doorstep with rivers, we are now doing the same with one of our most cherished lake.
Dingdong:
and now not only putting shit in our rivers but also diarrhea in our toilets https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd1q1d51w27o good job water companies!
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