Who funds the construction of water reservoirs in the UK?

I remember well the comments from the water companies post '76 "this will never happen again", well it has and even before the spring. Any one would think the water companies have been thinking profit before performance?

Can't blame them they look at other industries and say that's the way to do it.

And I remember the argument for water privatisation. Something along the lines of "this will allow us to invest, and replace all the crumbling Victorian pipes and sewers". Nothing of the sort happened but a lot of directors became very rich.

United Utilites is the water company for the NW of England. They normally have plenty of water falling in the Lake District and the western Pennines (well, at least I think they do) so they can supply Manchester and Liverpool quite easily and have a surplus.

That surplus could be piped across Severn Trent to Thames Water who have a shortage. It could be stored in Cumbria before piping, or it could be stored in Abingdon after it is piped. This would be a future aspiration because we don't have the pipes or storage at present.

Assumin this was accepted as a "good idea", who should pay for the additional piping and storage costs? The people in the Thames Valley ? The people in Cumbria (if the storage reservoir is built there) ? The Nation as a whole ? (as we do for motorways and railways) or what ?

Cheers

Don

Or we could take a corporate stance:

"Re-educate" the general populace into believing that water is suddenly a scarce natural resource.

(After all, we're getting used to these ideas, with fossil fuels, eco-awareness, etc)

Install water meters at all premises.

Charge much more for the water, forcing customers to use much less.

Now the same amount of water may be shared between many, many more customers.

Absolute minimal infrastructure investment (just meters, really)

Maximum profits.

But then I'm told I'm much too cynical!

There's more than enough water falls in the UK.

The biggest need by far is agriculture. Followed by industry. Followed by domestic users.

Unfortunately it doesn't all fall where we want it, or when we want it. It tends to fall in the west/north west and it tends to fall in the winter.

Installing meters is, in effect, rationing the supply and giving a few people the opportunity to charge the earth for the limited supply available in the south/south east in the summer. Seems a pretty miserable, pathetic, greedy solution. But for some reason, popular.

Cheers

Don

To answer the OP, it is whoever wants to build a reservoir who must pay for it.

Seems very paroial, given the regional nature of the water industry.

If we scrapped the regional water companies, and introduced a national water company, supplying the whole of the UK, you wouldn't have any problem with a reservoir being funded by the whole of the UK ?

Cheers

Don

Do you mean if we re-nationalised water companies? If so UK taxpayers would pay as we do for any public utility or any other Government spending.

In fact the question, and answer, is not restricted to water companies - anyone who wants to build a reservoir can do so with the appropriate planning consents.

One of the benefits of a national policy (not necessarily  a nationalised industry) is that we can collectively invest in sensible projects that otherwise might be difficult to put into effect. Motorways and railways tend towards this model (although CrossRail is a partial exception). And yes, UK taxpayers would then fund such reservoirs and piplines, rather than the burden falling on one particular part of the population.

This would mean government setting the policy, raising the funds through taxation, paying consultants/contractors to design and build the new infrastructure then passing the new asset to the water conpanies to operate and maintain to specified standards.

I'm not sure whether the water companies actually own the existing infrastructure or whether they simply have a (say) 30 year licence to operate and maintain the infrastructure.

Cheers

Don