[SA Chris]

Pay hundreds of thousands is sadly cheaper than spending tens of millions improving infrastructure.

[Dingdong]

Whilst paying their shareholders 70 million in dividends 

[Johnny Brown]

Over a thousand times more actually, 78 billion.

[stone]

Whilst paying their shareholders 70 million in dividends 

It is so important that we include all payments to capital rather than being blinkered into only seeing dividends. Yorkshire water paid £360.9m in interest to creditors in 2022/23.

It is such BS when a regulated company does an equity to debt conversion (as the water companies have done), and then claim that they subsequently aren't extracting much as dividends. Of course they aren't because they now take it out by way of interest payments.

[Dingdong]

Don't mind me, just gonna periodically drop in here and leave articles proving that water companies such as Yorkshire Water are polluting our waterways and getting away with paying insignificant fines whilst paying their shareholders dividends.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/09/englands-rivers-to-remain-in-poor-state-as-eu-laws-ignored-post-brexit-says-watchdog

[teestub]

Don't mind me, just gonna periodically drop in here and leave articles proving that water companies such as Yorkshire Water are polluting our waterways and getting away with paying insignificant fines whilst paying their shareholders dividends.

Hopefully you’re writing to your MP with your concerns, as well as posting here

[Dingdong]

When the gas network in Stannington flooded destroying a number of my neighbours homes thanks to yorkshire waters incompetence, you can bet your ass I complained about them to Olivia Blake who was nothing but excellent. Sadly they have free reign to do what they want as long they pay measly fines.

Until the water companies are back under public ownership they'll continue to funnel money to their shareholders pockets instead of using that money to upgrade vital infrastructure.

The gas network was flooded because yorkshire water decided not to invest in pipes in the area despite numerous warnings and previous instances of pipes cracking and flooding areas of stannington.

This is not dissimilar to what's happening with the raw sewage discharges, these same bastards are keeping all of our money and using it to get richer whilst our waterways are filled with shite.

[Will Hunt]

When I said before that the quality of reporting around this was poor, this is the kind of thing I meant.

While Britain was in the EU, a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law.

From 2016, the government decided to test water quality under WFD every three years rather than annually.

A single sentence separating two contradictory statements, each presented as fact. Can the Guardian really not be aware of when Brexit occurred? This is typical of the paper, which is happy to report on the water environment provided it can be used as an argument for nationalising the water industry/being in the EU (I mean, I absolutely hate Brexit, but the reduction in sampling frequency has nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with budget cuts).

Ideologically, I'm in favour of nationalised water. That doesn't necessarily mean I think it would be a pragmatic thing to do now. Do I think that nationalisation is a solution to the "problem" (what is that exactly? Reduction of storm overflows? Elimination of storm overflows? Reduction of pollution incidents? Improvement of bathing water quality? Improvement of water ecology? All different things with different solutions)? Not really. Dwr Cymru have all these challenges; they have no shareholders. The same goes for plenty of other water and sanitation providers around the developed world.

[Moo]

It’s worth noting that not even feargal sharkey is arguing in favour of nationalising the water companies. His argument being ( the last time I saw him speak about it ) that as soon as we do so then we all foot the bill. He’s arguing for tough regulations on the water companies, get them to sort the mess out they created and the shareholders will just have to suck it up for a while.

The basic premise of that argument makes sense to me but I’m certainly not wise as to how difficult that would be to implement.

I guess if you did nationalise the water companies then you could hopefully be surer of their governance being in our best interests.

[Will Hunt]

For what it's worth, I'm sceptical that nationalising would lead to better regulation, which is how you change internal governance. The reason the Thatcher government privatised in the first place is because they balked at funding themselves the future investment that was needed to pull the industry out of the hole it was in in the late 80s. 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. I personally don't think the Environment Act would have been enacted as it is if the government was going to have to do the borrowing and taxing to pay for it.

[Teaboy]

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.

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]

Water companies, whether privatised or not, will have the same income streams

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]

Water companies, whether privatised or not, will have the same income streams

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.

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!

[SA Chris]

Who needs UV treatment anyway? Welcome to the 3rd world.

[Jacqusie]

Anyone interested in the plans for the cragx Bridge, the info is here:

https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/10231299


Including the design drawing of the new build:


https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/7061454e41646c61426c646c612f42417a6841594e413d3d



Which looks pretty cool

[SamT]

Nice,   The 'training wall' is a nice feature 

[SA Chris]

Nice,   The 'training wall' is a nice feature 

Not sure what that is? An existing climbing section, or is it some civils term I don't know?

[SamT]

Out of interest, how much as been raised so far.  The links to the fundraiser are all dead and cant find any reference to it here https://peakdistrict.enthuse.com/profile

(has someone run off with the money to plug a gap in the BMC coffers)

[peewee]

Nice,   The 'training wall' is a nice feature 

Not sure what that is? An existing climbing section, or is it some civils term I don't know?

A term for a wall that directs water away from a structure.

Given i use that term most days at work, i knew what it is but not the official meaning.

[SA Chris]

Thanks, I guess I could have googled. Disappointing mundane, was hoping they were incorporating an all weather / DWS kilter board into the structure

[Tony S]

Out of interest, how much as been raised so far.

I emailed the the PDNP Foundation, I was grateful and pleased to receive the following response:

£49k towards to cost of the [Cress-brook Mill] bridge has been raised or donated via the Foundation.

This includes £12,024 raised via the Enthuse platform (plus gift aid), £10k from the BMC Access and Conservation Trust, £5k from the South Yorkshire and North East Derbyshire Ramblers and a £20k donation from the Foundation’s own core funds.

I believe the Foundation was pleasantly surprised by the success of this appeal. I gather it is hoped that the bridge will be open before the end of the year.

[SamT]

Forgive me if its buried somewhere in the arguments about water quality, but I thought the cost was £180k, and 49k has been raised.  So who's making up the £131k shortfall, (the BMC??  )

[SA Chris]

A bridging loan (sorry)