to think the water companies need to buck their ideas up

[JenniferBooth]

SE water failures yet again. Even had the temerity to write to customers to tell them to be extra careful with their usage. I come under Anglian Water and we had three burst pipes in this part of Essex last week . I heard that my hairdresser had to empty her emersion tank so she could wash clients hair. She couldnt rebook because she is fully booked. Bad enough there is an aversion to air con in this country but now we are begrudged running water in a heatwave too.

Water companies can't control the water cycle - if there's no rain, then reservoirs will gradually empty and groundwater doesn't recharge. If we all play a part in conserving water then there will be enough to go around when we need it. The population is increasing and more housing is being built - we need to face up to that.

They could fix their leaky pipes One was leaking for a MONTH locally AND on the heatwave threads the heatwave lovers couldnt wait to point out how much rain we had last winter. And you need to tell housing associations because they are the ones fitting baths not showers. Im not going to bed a stinky sweaty mess because i have a bath.

We don't have an "aversion to air con". We don't need it 11 months of the year in this cold little island. Air con heats up the climate anyway. We need better designed houses and streets with small trees and shade. Grey water recycling should be fitted into every new home. And a water butt.

We do need better water infrastructure though, the government need to come down on the water CEO's like a ton of bricks. But people also need to stop using stupid hosepipes and wating grass, non essential flowers and shrubs etc.

And those of us in flats?

Population increase and climate change have been well known facts for many years or even decades. I can remember learning about climate change in science and geography in the early 1980s

it is a total failure to plan and invest. Tbe water
companies are too busy paying out dividends.

During the summer of 2022, the UK experienced five distinct heatwave periods ranging from 3 to 16 days in length, which culminated in a historic national temperature record of (40.3^{\circ }\text{C}). 1, 2]
According to the UK Health Security Agency, the five heatwave episodes included:
Episode 1: 4 days (June 16 to June 19)
Episode 2: 16 days (July 10 to July 25), which included the most intense 2-day period of Level 4 extreme heat (July 18 and July 19)
Episode 3: 7 days (July 30 to August 5)
Episode 4: 10 days (August 8 to August 17)
Episode 5: 3 days (August 23 to August 25)
The UK experienced four distinct, relatively short-lived heatwaves during the summer of 2025, each lasting between 5 to 6 days. While these events were brief, they occurred throughout the season and resulted in the warmest overall UK summer on record. 1, 2, 3]
Breakdown of the 2025 heatwave events:
Heatwave 1 (Third week of June): Officially declared in mid-June, lasting about five days in central and eastern England before breaking with thunderstorms.
Heatwave 2 (Late June - Early July): This event lasted about six days for parts of Yorkshire and the Humber and five days in the East. A longer, more intense spell of this heatwave affected London and southern areas, peaking at 34.7°C between June 23 and July 2.
Heatwave 3 & 4 (July and August): Additional, intermittent heatwaves occurred during these months, pushing the overall summer average for the UK to a record-breaking 16.1°C. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

I agree.

Climate change is here to stay, drought conditions will be more widespread.

We gave no new reservoirs, the pipes are antiquated and leak, demand is rising with the rising population numbers.

The government is putting cart in front of the horse with the endless building with no water provision,

We are sleep walking into a huge crisis.

Can someone explain to me, in simple terms, why they AREN'T being held to account? From my perspective it looks like this:

• they take money from us, on their terms, and we have no choice
• they give the money to shareholders/executives
• the services they're supposed to provide fail, repeatedly and publicly
• they shrug and say they can't fix it because they haven't got any money left
• cycle repeats

How is it not possible to just take the companies off them, on the grounds that they're not doing the job? I've heard people saying we'd have to buy them back to renationalise - but why when they're so clearly not meeting the terms of the contract??

It is shocking and I blame the treasonous Thatcher government that sold off state owned utilities and compromised national security in the process. Of course the private equity funds loaded the utilities up with debt and invested nothing in the infrastructure. Of course they just pass any and all fines onto their 'customers'. They exist to make money, not provide an essential public service. The whole lot should renationalised.

The sewage works for our town is on a chalk bed river, supposedly one of the rarest habitats in the world. They discharge raw sewage into the river from time to time. There is a nature reserve 2 miles downstream. When they do, even the birds won’t go in the water. Meanwhile, like at Hampstead Ponds, loads of young people are jumping into the water and messing about. Some idiot put on Facebook in another county, that the nature reserve was a good place to go - for playing about in the water; not to observe wildlife!

DH wrote to them to say it was very irresponsible, when the river is highly polluted!

Hold directors personally liable, not just fines but something that really inconveniences them such as travel and driving bans.

Better still, set a deadline and if it fails, nationalisation without compensation.

What they can control is infrastructure. Lack of investment and paying billions in dividends over the years to shareholders instead of investing that money means they could have built more reservoirs, fixed leaking pipes and put steps in place to stop dumping raw sewage into the sea and rivers.

As for the water cycle. There is no lack of rain in this country.

Yes we can all do our bit, but letting the water companies off the hook and blaming the old man for watering his roses is madness.

70% of water companies are foreign owned.

So dividends flow out and we’re left with the shit. Literally .

As someone who works for a water company I can tell you that we haven't run out of water in the reservoirs at this moment in time, we've got plenty. The problem is people are using it faster than we can pump it into thee pipes because of the hot weather so the pipes are losing pressure which is causing supply issues. It is physically impossible to put water into the pipes as fast, or faster than it is being used at the moment because of the sheer amount of water being used. Yes the population is increasing, there are more houses, more showers, more drinks, more hosepipes and sprinklers running and more paddling pools being filled up.

We don't want you to have no water. We want you to slow down on emptying the mains pipes into your lawns and flower pots so that everyone gets water.

For the people about to say we should replace every pipe on the country with one twice the size and build new mega pumps, that is literally impossible without spending trillions and digging the whole damn county up, it's also unnecessary 48 weeks of the year because when usage is normal it's fine.

In last year's drought some of the reservoirs did run dry and some of them got down to emergency levels. That was terrifying for all of us because we can't pull water out of our arse if it doesn't rain but what's happening currently is a different issue. It's like moaning theres not enough ice cream because you have to wait in a long queue to get some. There's plenty of ice cream, but people can only be served one at a time so you just have to accept you have to wait to get yours, but it hasn't run out.

Water control room worker here

I don’t think we are begrudged running water but I do think people can do their bit within reason. As soon as summer demand hits, we can visibly see the storage points dropping hour by hour and it then becomes a balancing act trying to take water from some to keep others topped up and keep everyone on water. It’s not viable to take all the fun of summer away and say no paddling pools etc but things like keeping a sprinkler on for the grass all day doesn’t help.

I work on managing burst mains specifically and although it doesn’t help on the receiving end, we are hopping around the office 24 hours a day trying our best and actually I take pride in caring. But you’re right, situations like your hairdresser shouldn’t happen. Burst pipes can’t be predicted but there are restoration options that should be prioritised for situations like that

Time to build some desalination plants? We are a island surrounded by water ……

Yes we take pride on how hard we work together keep the water running too. We're all doing loads of overtime, missing our kids and working our asses off this week with the summer demand. Everyone just seems to think were cunts though. So that's nice.

Desalination plants are horrific for the environment. All building those will do is accelerate global warming this increasing demand even further and kill all the fish on the surrounding sea.

They pass the fines they are given on to the bill payers too.

So we get our water cut off for weeks on end, they empty raw sewage onto our local beach, they get fined and they pass the cost on to us. Our bills go up to pay the fine. It's daylight robbery.

The directors should get fined personally.

Im getting a sense of deja vu here..........oh i know what it is. It happens on the NHS threads Ppl on the front line taking it personally when ppl on here criticise the NHS as an organization NO ONE on here has criticised the front line workers of the water companies. we have quite rightly pointed out its unacceptable and criticised the CEOs

Water companies pouring raw sewage into the environment is also horrific, but they carry on doing it, with no care for humans, fish, or any other animal etc etc. we’ve got ourselves into a very sad state.

Like @SerenaCat93 i have worked in the water industry.
Most water pipes leak because of ground movement. So when the ground dries and cracks or freezes, the pipes crack too. The other main contributor to burst pipes is 3rd party damage by other contractors. Occasionally you get something really unusual that causes a burst like an unexploded WW2 bomb that detonates. (Which happened when I was working for a water company).
The water company don't actually cause the leaks, but they only have a finite number of trained employees and if it's in the public highway then they have to liaise with the other utilities and local council to set up traffic lights/close roads/excavated. If the area is considered "traffic sensitive" then the council may only give permission to carry out repairs overnight/at weekends.
I've watched the computer screens in the control room showing reservoir levels and how something seemingly insignificant to a household has an effect on the demand. The controllers would have the TV on during major sports events or prime time TV, because as soon as the final penalty is scored or the "doof doof" moment in Eastenders happens the demand for water increases dramatically. This means they can switch on systems to keep the water flowing.

I don’t think anyone thinks that the people operating water are cunts, we think that the the situation is mismanaged by the politicians and the management.

This. 100% this.

In my village FOUR years ago we received a letter saying they were going to upgrade the infrastructure which has been leaking and bursting for years. It's been quietly put off and off and they cannot be pinned down to a new date. All the while people's gardens are backing up with sewage, their foundations are being destabilised by leaks gushing past their walls and people in sheltered accommodation aren't able to flush their toilets for weeks on end.

It's an absolute disgrace and I'm delighted my MP is trying to hold them to account. It needs people in government to force the water companies to do the right thing.

They aren’t held to account because MPs get big funding donations from the execs running the water companies and/or are shareholders of them/expecting a cushy consultancy job from them when they leave office.