Water summit should support plans to increase water supply for South East and Eastern England from the West of Britain says GMB

20 February 2012

There is no shortage of water in Britain but there is a shortage of structures that can make decisions to get the water to where it is needed and this needs to be corrected says GMB

GMB, the water workers union, commented on the water summit being held today (Feb 20th) by Government on likely drought next summer.

GMB say there is no shortage of water in Britain but there is a lack of capacity to get the water from where it is plentiful to areas where it can be scarce. GMB insist that the most important issue is the need to come forward with plans to increase the supply of water to the South East and Eastern England.

GMB dismiss the plan in the White Paper last year to introduce a 'market' for water for households as irrelevant. GMB calls on all concerned to recognise that water is a natural monopoly. GMB has put back on the table plans from the old Water Resources Board to import water from the west of Britain to those parts where it is scarce.

GMB, as a contribution to the summit debate publishes a paper dated 18th November 2011 by Barry Rydz, a retired official of the old Water Resources Board, which sets out the case for water to be transferred from the west of Britain to the South East and Eastern England and identifies a number of ways of doing this. See notes to Editors below for full paper.

The Water Resources Board had the brief to find more supplies for London and other parts of South East and Eastern England before it was absorbed in to other bodies before the privatisation of the industry.

Mr Rydz spoke at GMB Congress in 2006 on the work of the Water Resources Board. He said then “All these proposals involve supplies form the west, the direction from which the bulk of London's supplies arrive, not from the north. Indeed, a project to meet London's needs by aqueduct from Wales was proposed about a hundred and forty years ago.“

Barry Rydz went on to say, “About fifty potential storage developments were identified including new reservoirs, expansion of old reservoirs and more effective ways of managing existing reservoirs and aquifers. Selections of these, sufficient to roughly double the national water supply, were assembled into 'best buy' programmes to form the basis of future plans. So there is no question that ample resources are available.

Moreover, this advice was not limited to ideas and sound bites; every item of work was costed sufficiently to make valid comparisons of economic merit and environmental impacts were carefully considered by the Board. A major scheme which could have served the south east was to store more water on the site of an existing reservoir in central Wales and transfer it via the Severn and the Thames to London.

Some observers now take the view that transfer of water between rivers is virtually prohibited by European Union directives regardless of its economic merits, in which case long and expensive aqueducts may again be needed. I find it hard to believe that such an extreme interpretation of EU rules is correct but if it is then this issue should surely be revisited.

Mr Rydz drew attention to a scheme to enlarge the Craig Goch reservoir in Plymlimmon mountain range in mid Wales and to move the water via the rivers Wye and Severn and to be pumped into the Thames to supply London and the South East. Mr Rydz contended that this would be a cheaper solution to the water shortages in the South East than the then Thames Water proposal to build a reservoir at Abingdon.

A copy of his speech at GMB Congress in 2006 is in Notes to Editors in a GMB press release on this subject dated 21 December 2011.

Mick Rix, GMB National Officer for the water industry said, “GMB members who work in the water industry doubt if these sensible views on water will get much of a hearing at the summit. It does not suit a lot of interests to say there is no shortage of water in Britain just a shortage of capacity to get it from where it is plentiful to areas of relative scarcity."

Barry Rydz, speaking about planning in the water industry in 2006, said 'I am appalled at the amateurish nature of most public discussion of this subject. One hopes that ministers are receiving more sophisticated advice in private, but this seems doubtful.'Things have not improved since then.

It should be common ground that water is a natural monopoly yet we have all three major parties, including Labour, trying to extend 'competition' into the water 'market'. What nonsense.

Barry Rydz was taking sense when he said, 'I think it was a great mistake for this country to abandon what I call the national dimension in water resource management, since ours is a small heavily populated country with short lines of communication and with most of the resources on one side and growing demand on the other.'

We should correct this mistake and listen to the experts who gave advice based on needs and not on the desire to make money. It is essential that the government speeds up plans to get more water to the South East and Eastern England. What is not in short supply is water but there is a shortage of structures that can make decisions to get the water to where it is needed. The government has to act and act speedily.

The current structure of the privatised companies and the regulator need to be scrapped. GMB want to see the private equity in the privatised water companies converted to long term debt with a fixed return, issued by the public sector. We want to see control of the industry return to the public sector and we want to see the powers of the old Water Resources Board being resurrected so that plans can be made to get more water to the South East and Eastern England.”

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