The thing that went wrong with our WATER is the same that went wrong with Gas Electric Trains Busses they were PRIVATISED so they changed from supplying a service that we all need to a Money making organisation to benefit a few wealthy share holders
what we do know is that since privatisation, no money has been invested in new or bigger sewage systems, but many have made massive profits, and many have also borrowed heavily to sustain those massive profits. and yes allowing raw sewage into the sea / rivers is a way of making profits. it doesn't need to rain for the water companies to dump raw sewage in to the sea / rivers.
@@Gary-bz1rf If I recall correctly, they've been promising to for decades. So it's really up to them to figure it out, it ain't my area of expertise. Either that, or they stop making promises they have no intention of keeping whilst making a huge profit off us.
It's time to re-nationalise our water, sewage treatment, and utilities. It's totally absurd that all are private. Massive profits are accrued every year - with a small fraction of these massive profits going into repairing and/or upgrading infrastructure for all of what I mentioned above. It's absurd, obscene, immoral - and probably unethical too. It's time we took our vital services back.....into public hands. This NEEDS to be done....sooner rather than later.
I'm getting really tired of Coffey thinking we are all fools, the privatised Water Indistry have had 39 years since privatisation to correct this problem but they choose to line there investors pockets instead.
Good report. Although the impotant point that needs to be made is that the Victorians didn't get wrong! Combined drains (rainwater + foul) were the only way at that time the system could work, before flushing loos were available the system needed river and rain water to be introduced to keep the solids moving. Non-flushing outdoor (long drop) loos relied on a steady flow of water to carry the solids away - a good shower was an absolute necessity to keep the system clear.
The report and the reporter blatantly put the blame squarely on the Victorians despite being told different multiple times. It's almost as if they want to make the privatisation seem like a good thing and the companies heroes battling against a design set up to fail them from day one.
Spot on. The problem is that we’ve over populated the capacity of the system. We’ve let developers build and build and make vast profits without contributing to the cost of upgrading the infrastructure that we depend on.
@@roberthiggins6401 It's really not that "amazing". It's easily achievable with a society whose leaders are focused upon improving living conditions. Modern society's leaders are just focused on greed and oppression.
Maybe, but how do people deal with the mental conflict of believing Government run services better while at the same time believing the Government are useless?
There are many lingering problems the Tories are casually kicking down the road. -Education - Schools are underfunded, they're literally collapsing as well as figuratively. -Healthcare - Overmanaged, underfunded, poor working conditions. On brink of collapse. -Environment - Goals kicked further down the road to protect big-oil companies. -Energy - Again, prioritising big oil and gas companies at the cost of tens/hundreds of billions to taxpayers. -Water - Privatised and not regulated properly, leading to complete disaster of the country's infrastructure. -Military - Funding and staffing cut. What exactly are the Tories doing? They've failed on literally every account. Cutting money and lining their own pockets, leading the country into complete ruin.
Someone needs to tell Coffey that the Tories have been in power for 40 of the last 53 years, 80 of the last 123. That is plenty time to plan. If they can't get it right in 8 decades they never will.
@@MrPoiuytre91 and Labour aren’t much better, brought in PFI contracts, in Scotland alone the amount still owed £15 billion. Under this labour policy 16 years after they were kicked oot, we are still paying the price, £1 million every week out of taxpayers purse.
I guess we should look at how many "alleged illegal wars" were committed by labour in that time span? Time to stand up for Blair those that think he is innocent.
What went wrong?... privatisation, privatisation, privatisation. Water companies borrowed immense sums, £billions in fact. Has this led to paying enormous dividends to shareholders rather than investment in infrastructure which since privatisation has flatlined.
Privatisation happened to English water & they've not invested in the network for years & have allowed billions of gallons to leak all over the place. They're willing to take the cash but not to spend anything to maintain it. They've been running it like an engine with the check engine light on for the last 100k miles & wonder how it's broken. They need to be forced into reinvesting in the network to get it back to a decent level. Scottish Water company rocks & we don't get ripped off like the English.
I hope in about 5 years or so, we do another referendum to rejoin. I know Brexit feels like yesterday, but it''s already been 7 years since the Brexit vote. We've been out for 2 years. In another 5 years, that'd be 12 years since the original vote. How much would the population have changed since then? Like, genuinely. 12 years is a very long time and would have a huge impact on the population's voting demographics. Given it was 52 - 48 in favour of leave, 12 years would shift those stats fairly significantly as the older generation dies.
@@kanedNunable Yeah there is that, although I meant that as Scottish water is in public ownership, money is reinvested in the infrastructure instead of going to shareholders. We have been installing separate systems of drainage and permeable paving for as long as I can remember, as its unnecessary and wasteful to treat most rainwater in sewage treatment plants. From what I understand Welsh Water is non profit making. Scottish water pays circa 300k to chief exec, where in England collectively, executives across the sector were paid almost £25 million. This, in my opinion is where questions need to be asked. As an angler I feel for all the people whose waters are affected. Have a good day!
@@tastypymp1287yes there was an elevated level of immigration but i'm sorry to burst your bigotry bubble but the water companies have been siphoning off profits since privatisation and it's only been in the last ten years or so that water companies en-mass have decided that it is easier and cheaper to dump raw sewerage into rivers and the sea and pay the extra money which every one of us paid to the companies to their shareholders instead. blair started his rush for votes back around 2000 with opening up britain to india etc. tories have had many opportunities to sort both sorry messes out since getting back in power and have done bugger all about them.
@@Dooguk it's because they are privatised that's why, waster and all utilities should be in public hands as part of national security. But no we have idiots that think privatisation is a good thing even though the evidence says otherwise doesn't matter who owns them. Wake up
@@damiendye6623 I know full well about the perils of privatisation, I worked for a power company for 40 years, so I saw both sides of it. It was a good firm to work for. When it got sold off it was to another British comapny at first. Then later on a European company bought it and things went downhill fast. No investment and power outages took longer to get fixed. Couldn't wait to get out and took early retirement
I found it utterly astonishing that even though the authorities are aware of the problems of mixing rainwater with sewage they still continue to do it ! - how hard would it be to establish some regulations which make it mandatory to separate rainwater and sewage when building new urban areas or refurbishing existing ones ? - I'm aware that it won't solve the problem overnight, but it will help to prevent the problem from getting much worse.
Since Brexit, Britain can no longer be fined by the EU for sewerage discharge and the easing of rules has the water companies taking full advantage.No country within the EU is allowed to simply pour raw sewage into clean water
@@markmooch Before Brexit,water companies would store excess in tankers or vats,until rain lessened and then pump back into the system for cleansing..Only in serious emergencies could they discharge into rivers and waters..Once Brexit occurred,the serious emergencies rule was widened and slackened to the point where the rule was somewhat disregarded by the water companies.. Recently just outside of Hastings,a drain was blocked and so sewerage was discharged direct in sea for 7 weeks..They were in no hurry to repair the drain and claimed spare parts needed etc etc
@@markmooch Money...It's expensive to make the underground storage..It would reduce the company dividends and even directors bonuses,so they have no interest in solutions that might affect their pay..This is why water should be in public ownership..Even in right wing America,water is in public ownership and is not privatised.
What went wrong with Britain’s water system is the Tories privatisation and handing all the money to their mates. When they privatised water they’ve set in laws to make it hard for the public to get it back from them.
Tories sold off public assets to their mates who then "borrowed" money against those assets but gave it to themselves leading to no reinvestment. Amazing
As already mentioned, Thatcher privatised our utilities in the 80's...... and that was the start of the demise - no investment for 40 yrs...... and now the hard-faced private companies want us to pay for upgrading. Thatcher was an utter disgrace but, labour were no better. For 45yrs, we have failed successive governments with no coherent planning in all areas - utilities, roads, housing, supporting manufacturing etc.. We have career politicians who have never worked in the real world and quite frankly, most of them are out of their depth. I don't really understand how anybody can seriously think they can vote Tory or Labour (or Liberal) at the next election. Labour are ruining Wales, SDP are leaving Scotland in a mess (missing money, ferry fiasco etc..). We need statesmen/women to get a grip - anybody come to mind that can get us out of this downward-spiraling mess?
An excellent, informative video - Ed Conway is always impressive. My partner used to work as an analytical chemist attached to a sewage treatment plant - lots of unseen work goes into monitoring raw sewage for pollutants, as well as discharged treated water. (This, of course being in addition to the extensive monitoring of water supplies for drinking water.)
People are the largest polluters, if only households could biodegrade instantly its waste there would be no need for elaborate sewage. It would help a lot.
It doesn't even need to be elaborate sewage systems, just ones that are properly maintained. It's fine saying households could biodegrade their own waste, but that requires land/space, resources and time.
@@user-ds8rj2vc4v there is enough land to biodegrade, we just need to return it to nature. All new infrastructures should only be permitted if they are sustainable and old accommodated as much as possible. There are also environments in which the proces is accelerated and we could replicate it.
England to diverge from EU water monitoring standards - Everyone can now enjoy dirty Brexit water.... Brexit was by the Rich for the rich, the lower our standards the higher their profits.
The problem 100% is caused by the privatisation of the water companies, instead of reinvesting all the money required to maintain the system it was sent to private individuals abroad. The biggest selling of the nations silver ever.
It may be of interest to some that England is NOT Britain*. (This is a programme about England although entitled '. . .Britain'.) I'm so glad that Scotland has NOT privatised water. And personally, I think that any country which sells control of water to those who care only about profit and share holders, actually becomes less civilised by doing so. The fact that Scotland hasn't done this is, I think, something to be proud of. And thankful. I hope it stays that way. *I'm English but live in Scotland and this happens all the time.
Yes and the reason Scotland's water is NOT privatised is because of the Scottish government so all those people who gripe and moan about the SNP who run the Scottish government should maybe remember that and keep their mouths shut.
$$$$$millions here in Maine USA being spent on separating rainwater and sewage. Portland also built a multi million gallon reservoir underground to capture storm sewage overflow. Going to sit under the new soccer field.
According to Norman Tebbit water was privatized due to the huge investment required which only the private sector could provide. Oops seems the public have to pay for the improvements
What went wrong was lack of investment due to bias towards shareholders and not towards their customers and ignoring the fact that the population had incressed over the last forty years by over 10 million. Ofwat and the environmental agencies have been grossly negligent in their duties.
Hope Labour get into government and impose proper regulation on these cowboys. Needs to be nationalised long term but the treasury should NOT buy them out, these shareholders have taken the money for years, they MUST NOT be compensated!!
00:06 Britain's water system faces challenges with combined sewage and drain water pipes. 02:39 Combining rainwater and sewage in the same pipes leads to regular overflows and pollution. 04:46 Sewage from treatment works can be valuable as fertilizer. 06:56 Britain's water system faces challenges due to outdated infrastructure. 09:07 Improving water system in cities 11:35 Copenhagen's innovative water management solutions 13:32 Britain's water system facing challenges in supplying clean water. 15:37 Britain's water system is suffering from disruption and neglect.
Sky news did an excellent job with this. Our government should've started to tackle the problems with our sewage infrastructure when they got into power thirteen years ago. Instead they wasted billions on a vanity project like HS2. They should've forced those responsible to invest rather than pocket our cash. It would've left them a legacy to be proud of.
A good overview - Dieter Helm is correct on investment needed and government reluctance, but it preceded the 1990s. In the late 1970s it became clear England was going to run out of water, and it was recommended government begin constructing an initial 30 (?) desalination plants, install meters, charge households, and incentivise/encourage reduced water demand. One desal plant was built at Beckton, and the south of England now has the highest water consumption per head of population in Europe, and London is one of 7 capital cities in the world on the cusp of running dry. Water privatisation in England was but the latest disaster, essentially injecting a 30 year delay in doing what needed done, and which has now become an emergency. Ignore Coffey's posturing, she's but the latest in a long line of myopic ministers who shouldn't be in charge of running a bath let alone a Ministry.
before privatisation customers were paying enough to operate maintain and expand the UK's water and sewage system since privatisation prices have risen and risen and companies have only been operating the system with the cheapest possible maintenance and barely any expansion with the huge savings from this called profits. the population has been gradually growing with no more capacity for fresh water or sewage to the point of dumping huge ammounts of sewage at sea and resivoirs not being sufficient. water companies should not be expecting customers to start paying even more to cover upgrades and expansion - customers have been more than paying for this for decades with companies diverting money to cover this into excessive profits
totally different. HS2 is mostly government funded by taxpayers (i.e. us) enabling private companies to do the work for profit. water companies are consumer funded (i.e. us) private companies which do the work for profit. yeah, get your point...!
@@johng.1703it's standard Tory policy to give away the country's infrastructure and resources to private supporters, then giving tax payer money to the private supporters in return for support, kickbacks and jobs for ministers after they leave government.
Margaret Thatcher's mission was to privatise everything. The companies that tendered for the contracts got previously well run and maintained services for a fraction of their true value. That was not only water but gas, electric, British rail and a host of others previously contributors to the british economy. The new owners were making huge profiits, these profits were going to the shareholders and not investment in infrastructure. This lack of investment inevidently led to a breakdown of services. Now these companies are asking for bailouts from the government which means the taxpayer.
Aye, while the Government want to wash their hands of that and get the water companies to jack up their prices to pay for any new investment. Straight out of Coffey's lips no less. Except we know that they won't reinvest, so our money goes to pay out even more shareholder's dividends, while the Tories get a slap on the back from their paymasters.
TITLE "Down the drain: What went wrong with Britain's water system?" This is only a crisis in England, when there is an issue in England the whole UK gets tarred with the same brush in attempt to make us feel like we have the same problem when we dont! Interestingly; when there is a problem in Scotland it is not reported as "Britain's drug deaths" it is reported as only Scotland's problem. We all deserve better governments and better media, the whole island needs reset.
Privatisation is the act of forgoing the responsibilities of government or counsels to provide an essential service to a private company in the name of saving money for the taxpayer that actually costs the taxpayer more as the ONLY purpose of any company is to make a profit, NOT provide a service, the service is just the means of making a profit. In the pursuit of increased profits all cost cutting methods are employed which includes reducing or cutting maintenance & upgrades until companies are forced to spend money & in the case of infrastructure they will ask for government or counsel funds so that profits don't take a hit. Privatisation benefits only the shareholders at the expense of the community.
I am a chairman of a sewer authority created by two boroughs and one township and contracted to receive wastewater from another borough and township in Pennsylvania. I just look at it as they were putting Band-Aids on the system instead of maintaining it. There are a few things to look at, separating the wastewater from a stormwater collection system. That extends the growth in an area serviced by a sewer system. At what point do newer environmental regulations cause a sewer plant to change the treatment process or when the plant is at its end of life cycle. When is it necessary to replace the collection system and are they monitoring the different lines put in over the years. then the last part, have they set aside money to fund those upgrades/replacements over the decades or were they just looking for grants or hiking the rates up to cover a loan for what 20, 30 or 40 years.
Years later, and there's not much left of Britain's silverware for the Tories to sell off. Although having said that, it wouldn't surprise me if we found ourselves paying by the volumetric litre for the oxygen we breathe.
Just like gas and electricity the water companies are more interested in serving their shareholders rather than their customers. I was an Engineer with an Electricity Board starting in 1960. Any profits were invested in maintaining, improving and expanding the system. It worked well. The three main utility companies, gas, electric and water don't care about customers at all.
Why when given building planning permission for more housing the limitation of power, water and sewer capacity not considered and prevent over burdening the system
One of the issues is that the population is far higher than the government is telling people. Farmers say they're feeding 100M people, that's a lot of sewage.
There is no verification of the spending of increased fees. The typical scenario is that the water company asks for an increase (supposed to be a regulated monopoly) to do works such as fixing leaks. The increase is then used to provide extreme profits to shareholders, and the directors who pulled the scam get extra bonuses for the improved profitability. Meanwhile the infrastructure rots. What is needed is at least a ten-year review, to find when these instances have happened, for every water company, and the directors should be fined double the bonus they got, and put in jail, say, one year for each £ 100,000 of the money they took.
It would be accountable to the EU supervision if improving sewers was an EU project partially funded by the EU. Whoever allowed privatization knew how to circumnavigate the responsibility. The whole privatization scheme was a scam. No wonder some politicians wanted freedom from the EU to milk a cash cow without supervision.
Nothing went wrong with it, it’s the worlds oldest sewage network ( not including Ancient Greece ), it was built for far less people and then got upgraded only when it was broken
I’ve gotta say, the most surprising thing here was the random appearance of the lead singer of the Undertones to speak about treated sewage messing up his fishing
The issues are they haven't built any new infrastructure such as power stations reservoirs or sewers in the last 50 years yet population has increased by 20 million
People say they want more reservoirs but do their best to stop them. Just like the Gavin and Stacey scene where his mum is complaining about mobile phone reception and yet protesting about the mast which will greatly improve it, which was being proposed nearby
What went wrong. Decades collecting the profits, while denying any improvement or maintenance. We need more reservoirs first, and new sewage treatment plants as short second...
If I lived in Britain and was told, "we have the best drinking water in the world", I would call BS and force them to prove it. I live in North Eastern Ontario Canada. Where I live, we get our water from deep water wells that pumps water from a aquifer. The water is so pure, we don't need to treat it, but due to provincial regulations, it is treated with fluoride and chlorine. I would like to know how Britain's water is somehow better or cleaner.
the tory VIP lane ;) tories ruin everything and never provide anything. im not a huge fan of labour but at least they build things and dont privatise as much
Mixing sewage with rain was not a mistake. The rain flushes the sewers. No rain in the sewage would clog up the system with solids. The mistake is lack of investment by privatisation for profit.
the british agencies that look after our waterways are great at one thing,forgetting there responsibilities,there's a partly blocked stream that floods every year as they wont go and clear it but wont give anyone permission to either,maintenance is key and its forgotten about
We privatised it. That's what went wrong. A profit-making organism was inserted between the people who need water (ie everyone) and the organisation devoted to supply in it. That organism sucked up money that would otherwise be devoted to maintenance and making sure that standards would be met. Not hard to understand why it all went so wrong. The railways are exactly the same.
I loved the twist at the end of this - that the singer of the Undertones is now a clean water campaigner. Just disappointed that he didn't knock out a few bars of Teenage Kicks for us.
The issue is honestly not in the design, the issues is with privatisation of the system itself and the insentives involved with that and big corporate companies, i was a drainage engineer for 10+ years and i have to say although this video portrays that english drains are mostly victorian being the main issue, they are far from that, for years on end all of these new housing estates we’ve built have all been seperate foul and rainwater drainage, so on new builds at least the practice of seperate systems is already in place. A big issue still remains though that the old drainage is mostly still in place, and anywhere older than 30/40 years is most definitely combined. We could really do with a national reform, just like we did with national grid we need a set of investors or a budget at very least to be able to make new systems like this
The problem is the average eligible voter in the UK. The average voter did give the conservatives a mandate in 2010, again in 2015, again in 2017 and again in 2019.
The evidence is that when water supplies and waste systems were privatised the service worsened. Now we have had the experiment and had the results can we admit that public is better than private, and get our water back.
A local farmer uses human waste as fertiliser and it absolutely reeks for many miles around, it’s much worse then manure. Not sure if that’s the same thing as ‘cake’.
What went wrong with the British Sewage system? Answer: it is privatized. What went wrong with the British Railway? Answer: it is privatized. What went wrong with the British Postal Service? Answer: it is privatized. What went wrong with the British Energy providers? Answer: it is privatized. What is going on with the failing NHS? It is being privatized. Were are the profits of the privatized British Oil and Gas? They are going into the pockets of wealthy businessmen (see how Norway did that). Why are the enormous leaks in the British drink water network not fixed and grew to 1 trillion liters of lost drinking water in England and Wales via leaky pipes? Answer: it is privatized. Someone with half a brain would almost recognize a trend here.
Mostly water pollution is the public's fault, not the water companies. Desist from disposing fat, oil, grease, wet wipes, female sanitary products in the sewer network. Blockages, flooding and pollution can be prevented. Take responsibility for your own actions.
We have come a long way from the Victorians but we are still connecting rainwater pipes to sewage pipes, me my self have got 15 waterbutts and if they over flow the water goes in to soakaways, every year in the part of Kent i live ends off with hosepipe bans and there are thousands of new houses being built and they will all be plumped in to an old cistern that can't keep up, its about time the water company's started sorting this problem out.
What about making the actual toilets in our homes into a process plant for the household tht gets fed into tanks then the tanks get replaced already processed and that way no waste goes into our rivers and the waste can be disturbed locally for fertilisers?
Water, energy and transportation should always be in public hands, all profits ploughed back into the industry and for the good of the people, not share holders !
As it’s part of the STrategic infrastructure, Govt. oversight should be heavy… Compared to say Japan and Scandinavian countries, the UK’s so called future investments are mostly either minimal, relative, or simply short-term in real terms.
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The thing that went wrong with our WATER is the same that went wrong with Gas Electric Trains Busses they were PRIVATISED so they changed from supplying a service that we all need to a Money making organisation to benefit a few wealthy share holders
It's insane that anyone ever thought privatising sewers and water supply was a good idea.
That would be the tories.
whoever thought Tories were more than overgrown Eton hamsters, think again
I think those in the private enterprises of the Victorian era who built the infrastructure thought it a good idea.
@@dexadrinepancake London's sewage system was built by the government not the private sector.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 Metropolitan Board of Works. Private enterprise prior to that.
what we do know is that since privatisation, no money has been invested in new or bigger sewage systems, but many have made massive profits, and many have also borrowed heavily to sustain those massive profits. and yes allowing raw sewage into the sea / rivers is a way of making profits. it doesn't need to rain for the water companies to dump raw sewage in to the sea / rivers.
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@@Gary-bz1rf Water companies were privatised abotu 40 years ago. They've *had* decades to fix it. They still haven't.
@@Gary-bz1rf If I recall correctly, they've been promising to for decades. So it's really up to them to figure it out, it ain't my area of expertise. Either that, or they stop making promises they have no intention of keeping whilst making a huge profit off us.
@@Gary-bz1rf simp says what?
It's time to re-nationalise our water, sewage treatment, and utilities. It's totally absurd that all are private. Massive profits are accrued every year - with a small fraction of these massive profits going into repairing and/or upgrading infrastructure for all of what I mentioned above.
It's absurd, obscene, immoral - and probably unethical too.
It's time we took our vital services back.....into public hands. This NEEDS to be done....sooner rather than later.
I'm getting really tired of Coffey thinking we are all fools, the privatised Water Indistry have had 39 years since privatisation to correct this problem but they choose to line there investors pockets instead.
Good report. Although the impotant point that needs to be made is that the Victorians didn't get wrong! Combined drains (rainwater + foul) were the only way at that time the system could work, before flushing loos were available the system needed river and rain water to be introduced to keep the solids moving. Non-flushing outdoor (long drop) loos relied on a steady flow of water to carry the solids away - a good shower was an absolute necessity to keep the system clear.
The report and the reporter blatantly put the blame squarely on the Victorians despite being told different multiple times. It's almost as if they want to make the privatisation seem like a good thing and the companies heroes battling against a design set up to fail them from day one.
Spot on. The problem is that we’ve over populated the capacity of the system. We’ve let developers build and build and make vast profits without contributing to the cost of upgrading the infrastructure that we depend on.
Exactly Phil. It's bloody amazing what the victorians achieved and not just with water but the underground, hosing design etc.
@@roberthiggins6401 It's really not that "amazing". It's easily achievable with a society whose leaders are focused upon improving living conditions. Modern society's leaders are just focused on greed and oppression.
Don't forget the great stink of the Thames back then.
It was privatised, that is what went wrong.
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Maybe, but how do people deal with the mental conflict of believing Government run services better while at the same time believing the Government are useless?
It ain't necessarily so. Definitely hasn't worked with the NHS
@@dan79600 People like to complain, but deep down they know that it is best to let the government do this services.
Theresa says it can't be changed in a few years. The Tories have been in power for 13 years and have they made any moves to rectify it? No.
It was like this in the 90's.
There are many lingering problems the Tories are casually kicking down the road.
-Education - Schools are underfunded, they're literally collapsing as well as figuratively.
-Healthcare - Overmanaged, underfunded, poor working conditions. On brink of collapse.
-Environment - Goals kicked further down the road to protect big-oil companies.
-Energy - Again, prioritising big oil and gas companies at the cost of tens/hundreds of billions to taxpayers.
-Water - Privatised and not regulated properly, leading to complete disaster of the country's infrastructure.
-Military - Funding and staffing cut.
What exactly are the Tories doing? They've failed on literally every account. Cutting money and lining their own pockets, leading the country into complete ruin.
Someone needs to tell Coffey that the Tories have been in power for 40 of the last 53 years, 80 of the last 123. That is plenty time to plan. If they can't get it right in 8 decades they never will.
Well for years the folks England were happy to keep them in private hands as they have been voting mainly lavatories for years.
35 of the last 53 years actually. Labour had 1974-1979 and 1997-2010.
@@MrPoiuytre91 and Labour aren’t much better, brought in PFI contracts, in Scotland alone the amount still owed £15 billion. Under this labour policy 16 years after they were kicked oot, we are still paying the price, £1 million every week out of taxpayers purse.
@@MrPoiuytre91 Well, it's really 48 our of the last 53 years because New Labour were Tories with red rosettes.
I guess we should look at how many "alleged illegal wars" were committed by labour in that time span? Time to stand up for Blair those that think he is innocent.
What went wrong?... privatisation, privatisation, privatisation. Water companies borrowed immense sums, £billions in fact. Has this led to paying enormous dividends to shareholders rather than investment in infrastructure which since privatisation has flatlined.
It's being run for profit is what's wrong with it.
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Privatisation happened to English water & they've not invested in the network for years & have allowed billions of gallons to leak all over the place. They're willing to take the cash but not to spend anything to maintain it. They've been running it like an engine with the check engine light on for the last 100k miles & wonder how it's broken.
They need to be forced into reinvesting in the network to get it back to a decent level. Scottish Water company rocks & we don't get ripped off like the English.
3 days ago brown water in Scotland, unexplained chemical waste Aberdeen
@@eowyn5250 that's an anomaly here whereas it's the norm in England.
Those bloody EU telling us not to pollute of waters
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I hope in about 5 years or so, we do another referendum to rejoin. I know Brexit feels like yesterday, but it''s already been 7 years since the Brexit vote. We've been out for 2 years. In another 5 years, that'd be 12 years since the original vote. How much would the population have changed since then?
Like, genuinely. 12 years is a very long time and would have a huge impact on the population's voting demographics. Given it was 52 - 48 in favour of leave, 12 years would shift those stats fairly significantly as the older generation dies.
@@user-ds8rj2vc4v No way do we want to rejoin the EU.
It shouldn't require EU domination and rules when the British government and public need to own it .
@@alvanrigby6361 we are rejoining the EU
This isn't a British problem but an English one.
its a tory one. tho i admit its mainly stupid english voting tory
@@kanedNunable Yeah there is that, although I meant that as Scottish water is in public ownership, money is reinvested in the infrastructure instead of going to shareholders.
We have been installing separate systems of drainage and permeable paving for as long as I can remember, as its unnecessary and wasteful to treat most rainwater in sewage treatment plants.
From what I understand Welsh Water is non profit making.
Scottish water pays circa 300k to chief exec, where in England collectively, executives across the sector were paid almost £25 million.
This, in my opinion is where questions need to be asked.
As an angler I feel for all the people whose waters are affected.
Have a good day!
Doesn't stop brown water though
What went wrong is the Tories in charge and privatation
same under the light blue labour blair government too. they're both at fault
What went wrong was uncontrolled immigration from Labour causing unprecedented demand.
@@tastypymp1287yes there was an elevated level of immigration but i'm sorry to burst your bigotry bubble but the water companies have been siphoning off profits since privatisation and it's only been in the last ten years or so that water companies en-mass have decided that it is easier and cheaper to dump raw sewerage into rivers and the sea and pay the extra money which every one of us paid to the companies to their shareholders instead.
blair started his rush for votes back around 2000 with opening up britain to india etc. tories have had many opportunities to sort both sorry messes out since getting back in power and have done bugger all about them.
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@@tastypymp1287 nope.
This is far more important than HS2, upgrading the UK's internet network would have also been a much more sensible idea than HS2
Yeah but these are private companies and HS2 isn't so why have the private companies not done it.
@@damiendye6623 keeping shareholders happy, I’m sure I’ve heard hs2 is now asking for private investment also 😂 we know how that’s gonna go
@@damiendye6623 70% of England's water companies are owned by foreign investors, that's why.
@@Dooguk it's because they are privatised that's why, waster and all utilities should be in public hands as part of national security. But no we have idiots that think privatisation is a good thing even though the evidence says otherwise doesn't matter who owns them. Wake up
@@damiendye6623 I know full well about the perils of privatisation, I worked for a power company for 40 years, so I saw both sides of it. It was a good firm to work for. When it got sold off it was to another British comapny at first. Then later on a European company bought it and things went downhill fast. No investment and power outages took longer to get fixed. Couldn't wait to get out and took early retirement
I found it utterly astonishing that even though the authorities are aware of the problems of mixing rainwater with sewage they still continue to do it ! - how hard would it be to establish some regulations which make it mandatory to separate rainwater and sewage when building new urban areas or refurbishing existing ones ? - I'm aware that it won't solve the problem overnight, but it will help to prevent the problem from getting much worse.
Since Brexit, Britain can no longer be fined by the EU for sewerage discharge and the easing of rules has the water companies taking full advantage.No country within the EU is allowed to simply pour raw sewage into clean water
Yet, they still do.
What did the water companies do different before Brexit and why can’t they do it now?
@@markmooch Before Brexit,water companies would store excess in tankers or vats,until rain lessened and then pump back into the system for cleansing..Only in serious emergencies could they discharge into rivers and waters..Once Brexit occurred,the serious emergencies rule was widened and slackened to the point where the rule was somewhat disregarded by the water companies.. Recently just outside of Hastings,a drain was blocked and so sewerage was discharged direct in sea for 7 weeks..They were in no hurry to repair the drain and claimed spare parts needed etc etc
@@davidglow3 what benefit is there of not storing the sewage water until it can be treated?
@@markmooch Money...It's expensive to make the underground storage..It would reduce the company dividends and even directors bonuses,so they have no interest in solutions that might affect their pay..This is why water should be in public ownership..Even in right wing America,water is in public ownership and is not privatised.
Same old model in the UK. Shareholders first, strip profits, service second, then get public money for bailout!
What went wrong with Britain’s water system is the Tories privatisation and handing all the money to their mates. When they privatised water they’ve set in laws to make it hard for the public to get it back from them.
Nothing wrong with privatisation. Those in the industry that have the expertise needed know. many others don't that spout on the subject.
Tories sold off public assets to their mates who then "borrowed" money against those assets but gave it to themselves leading to no reinvestment. Amazing
As already mentioned, Thatcher privatised our utilities in the 80's...... and that was the start of the demise - no investment for 40 yrs...... and now the hard-faced private companies want us to pay for upgrading.
Thatcher was an utter disgrace but, labour were no better.
For 45yrs, we have failed successive governments with no coherent planning in all areas - utilities, roads, housing, supporting manufacturing etc..
We have career politicians who have never worked in the real world and quite frankly, most of them are out of their depth.
I don't really understand how anybody can seriously think they can vote Tory or Labour (or Liberal) at the next election.
Labour are ruining Wales, SDP are leaving Scotland in a mess (missing money, ferry fiasco etc..).
We need statesmen/women to get a grip - anybody come to mind that can get us out of this downward-spiraling mess?
English water our Scottish water is fine. Our water follows all European guidelines. 🏴
Scottish water is not contaminated I blame the SNP
An excellent, informative video - Ed Conway is always impressive.
My partner used to work as an analytical chemist attached to a sewage treatment plant - lots of unseen work goes into monitoring raw sewage for pollutants, as well as discharged treated water.
(This, of course being in addition to the extensive monitoring of water supplies for drinking water.)
People are the largest polluters, if only households could biodegrade instantly its waste there would be no need for elaborate sewage. It would help a lot.
It doesn't even need to be elaborate sewage systems, just ones that are properly maintained.
It's fine saying households could biodegrade their own waste, but that requires land/space, resources and time.
@@user-ds8rj2vc4v there is enough land to biodegrade, we just need to return it to nature. All new infrastructures should only be permitted if they are sustainable and old accommodated as much as possible. There are also environments in which the proces is accelerated and we could replicate it.
@@user-ds8rj2vc4v So no different to what the water companies require.
Every household should be made to deal with their own business. Could be given to make fertiliser. It's no worse than using other animal excrement
England to diverge from EU water monitoring standards - Everyone can now enjoy dirty Brexit water.... Brexit was by the Rich for the rich, the lower our standards the higher their profits.
Massive scandal and investigation should start with the regulators themselves. Shameful and disgusting.
The problem 100% is caused by the privatisation of the water companies, instead of reinvesting all the money required to maintain the system it was sent to private individuals abroad. The biggest selling of the nations silver ever.
easy. greed.
It may be of interest to some that England is NOT Britain*. (This is a programme about England although entitled '. . .Britain'.)
I'm so glad that Scotland has NOT privatised water. And personally, I think that any country which sells control of water to those who care only about profit and share holders, actually becomes less civilised by doing so. The fact that Scotland hasn't done this is, I think, something to be proud of. And thankful. I hope it stays that way.
*I'm English but live in Scotland and this happens all the time.
Yes and the reason Scotland's water is NOT privatised is because of the Scottish government so all those people who gripe and moan about the SNP who run the Scottish government should maybe remember that and keep their mouths shut.
@@annemitchell6144 Whoa,
$$$$$millions here in Maine USA being spent on separating rainwater and sewage. Portland also built a multi million gallon reservoir underground to capture storm sewage overflow. Going to sit under the new soccer field.
Over population and lack of investment
According to Norman Tebbit water was privatized due to the huge investment required which only the private sector could provide. Oops seems the public have to pay for the improvements
The share holders stole all the money just like our government does 😂😂😂.
A more poignant question should be 'What went wrong with Britain?'
Germany here. We carry rain water and sweage in the same pipes with no problems of that kind.
Germany does have problems. The Oder and Elbe have had serious pollution problems.
What went wrong was lack of investment due to bias towards shareholders and not towards their customers and ignoring the fact that the population had incressed over the last forty years by over 10 million. Ofwat and the environmental agencies have been grossly negligent in their duties.
Pork project from the start
Follow the money
07:02 The UK does NOT have the best drinking water. It's rubbish..
scotland maybe... we have some good spring water.
It’s not though is it
The water is decent, but calling it "best" is a stretch. Best compared to Sudan maybe...
Hope Labour get into government and impose proper regulation on these cowboys. Needs to be nationalised long term but the treasury should NOT buy them out, these shareholders have taken the money for years, they MUST NOT be compensated!!
00:06 Britain's water system faces challenges with combined sewage and drain water pipes.
02:39 Combining rainwater and sewage in the same pipes leads to regular overflows and pollution.
04:46 Sewage from treatment works can be valuable as fertilizer.
06:56 Britain's water system faces challenges due to outdated infrastructure.
09:07 Improving water system in cities
11:35 Copenhagen's innovative water management solutions
13:32 Britain's water system facing challenges in supplying clean water.
15:37 Britain's water system is suffering from disruption and neglect.
Sky news did an excellent job with this. Our government should've started to tackle the problems with our sewage infrastructure when they got into power thirteen years ago. Instead they wasted billions on a vanity project like HS2. They should've forced those responsible to invest rather than pocket our cash. It would've left them a legacy to be proud of.
A good overview - Dieter Helm is correct on investment needed and government reluctance, but it preceded the 1990s.
In the late 1970s it became clear England was going to run out of water, and it was recommended government begin constructing an initial 30 (?) desalination plants, install meters, charge households, and incentivise/encourage reduced water demand.
One desal plant was built at Beckton, and the south of England now has the highest water consumption per head of population in Europe, and London is one of 7 capital cities in the world on the cusp of running dry.
Water privatisation in England was but the latest disaster, essentially injecting a 30 year delay in doing what needed done, and which has now become an emergency.
Ignore Coffey's posturing, she's but the latest in a long line of myopic ministers who shouldn't be in charge of running a bath let alone a Ministry.
before privatisation customers were paying enough to operate maintain and expand the UK's water and sewage system
since privatisation prices have risen and risen and companies have only been operating the system with the cheapest possible maintenance and barely any expansion with the huge savings from this called profits.
the population has been gradually growing with no more capacity for fresh water or sewage to the point of dumping huge ammounts of sewage at sea and resivoirs not being sufficient.
water companies should not be expecting customers to start paying even more to cover upgrades and expansion - customers have been more than paying for this for decades with companies diverting money to cover this into excessive profits
Thatcherism
Shame they didn't invest the money for HS2 into the water and sewage systems instead
totally different.
HS2 is mostly government funded by taxpayers (i.e. us) enabling private companies to do the work for profit.
water companies are consumer funded (i.e. us) private companies which do the work for profit.
yeah, get your point...!
why would the government invest in a private system?
@@johng.1703it's standard Tory policy to give away the country's infrastructure and resources to private supporters, then giving tax payer money to the private supporters in return for support, kickbacks and jobs for ministers after they leave government.
@@johng.1703 maybe they should it happens in others systems. That said the money would only get into the pockets of share holders.
@@johng.1703 yet we will end up paying for it all no doubt
The beauty of privatisation, “more dividends”
Margaret Thatcher's mission was to privatise everything. The companies that tendered for the contracts got previously well run and maintained services for a fraction of their true
value. That was not only water but gas, electric, British rail and a host of others previously contributors to the british economy. The new owners were making huge profiits, these profits were going to the shareholders and not investment in infrastructure. This lack of investment inevidently led to a breakdown of services. Now these companies are asking for bailouts from the government which means the taxpayer.
Aye, while the Government want to wash their hands of that and get the water companies to jack up their prices to pay for any new investment.
Straight out of Coffey's lips no less.
Except we know that they won't reinvest, so our money goes to pay out even more shareholder's dividends, while the Tories get a slap on the back from their paymasters.
Coffey now has a new nickname, "Nellie the Effluent".
TITLE "Down the drain: What went wrong with Britain's water system?"
This is only a crisis in England, when there is an issue in England the whole UK gets tarred with the same brush in attempt to make us feel like we have the same problem when we dont!
Interestingly; when there is a problem in Scotland it is not reported as "Britain's drug deaths" it is reported as only Scotland's problem. We all deserve better governments and better media, the whole island needs reset.
Privatisation is the act of forgoing the responsibilities of government or counsels to provide an essential service to a private company in the name of saving money for the taxpayer that actually costs the taxpayer more as the ONLY purpose of any company is to make a profit, NOT provide a service, the service is just the means of making a profit. In the pursuit of increased profits all cost cutting methods are employed which includes reducing or cutting maintenance & upgrades until companies are forced to spend money & in the case of infrastructure they will ask for government or counsel funds so that profits don't take a hit. Privatisation benefits only the shareholders at the expense of the community.
Follow the money. Private companies and next to nothing or actual nothing spent on maintaining or upgrading ... funny how that works
I am a chairman of a sewer authority created by two boroughs and one township and contracted to receive wastewater from another borough and township in Pennsylvania. I just look at it as they were putting Band-Aids on the system instead of maintaining it. There are a few things to look at, separating the wastewater from a stormwater collection system. That extends the growth in an area serviced by a sewer system. At what point do newer environmental regulations cause a sewer plant to change the treatment process or when the plant is at its end of life cycle. When is it necessary to replace the collection system and are they monitoring the different lines put in over the years. then the last part, have they set aside money to fund those upgrades/replacements over the decades or were they just looking for grants or hiking the rates up to cover a loan for what 20, 30 or 40 years.
Coffee brazenly lied there were improvements since 2010.
Comes down to population. The whole world is struggling to cope with population across nearly every sector - housing, energy, water, doctors etc etc
bull ... it's about law enforcement.
Right, but we all saw population growth coming, many decades ago. It's criminal that people in charge of vital infrastructure did nothing about it
Years later, and there's not much left of Britain's silverware for the Tories to sell off. Although having said that, it wouldn't surprise me if we found ourselves paying by the volumetric litre for the oxygen we breathe.
Just like gas and electricity the water companies are more interested in serving their shareholders rather than their customers.
I was an Engineer with an Electricity Board starting in 1960. Any profits were invested in maintaining, improving and expanding the system. It worked well.
The three main utility companies, gas, electric and water don't care about customers at all.
Hummm; the shareholders have not seen great returns either. Shareholders => your pension fund!
Its not just the sewage, tap water has gone way down hill and is giving us stomach aches.
Why when given building planning permission for more housing the limitation of power, water and sewer capacity not considered and prevent over burdening the system
One of the issues is that the population is far higher than the government is telling people. Farmers say they're feeding 100M people, that's a lot of sewage.
There is no verification of the spending of increased fees. The typical scenario is that the water company asks for an increase (supposed to be a regulated monopoly) to do works such as fixing leaks. The increase is then used to provide extreme profits to shareholders, and the directors who pulled the scam get extra bonuses for the improved profitability. Meanwhile the infrastructure rots. What is needed is at least a ten-year review, to find when these instances have happened, for every water company, and the directors should be fined double the bonus they got, and put in jail, say, one year for each £ 100,000 of the money they took.
It would be accountable to the EU supervision if improving sewers was an EU project partially funded by the EU. Whoever allowed privatization knew how to circumnavigate the responsibility. The whole privatization scheme was a scam. No wonder some politicians wanted freedom from the EU to milk a cash cow without supervision.
Nothing went wrong with it, it’s the worlds oldest sewage network ( not including Ancient Greece ), it was built for far less people and then got upgraded only when it was broken
I’ve gotta say, the most surprising thing here was the random appearance of the lead singer of the Undertones to speak about treated sewage messing up his fishing
Total under investment and private companies profit skimming is the reason for the problems
What went wrong… dead easy. Lack of investment. Greedy privately owned companies.
The issues are they haven't built any new infrastructure such as power stations reservoirs or sewers in the last 50 years yet population has increased by 20 million
People say they want more reservoirs but do their best to stop them. Just like the Gavin and Stacey scene where his mum is complaining about mobile phone reception and yet protesting about the mast which will greatly improve it, which was being proposed nearby
What went wrong. Decades collecting the profits, while denying any improvement or maintenance. We need more reservoirs first, and new sewage treatment plants as short second...
""Best Drinking water in the world" whats her source for that? LOL. Has she ever been to Norway or Sweden? tap water quality is MUCH higher.
If I lived in Britain and was told, "we have the best drinking water in the world", I would call BS and force them to prove it. I live in North Eastern Ontario Canada. Where I live, we get our water from deep water wells that pumps water from a aquifer. The water is so pure, we don't need to treat it, but due to provincial regulations, it is treated with fluoride and chlorine. I would like to know how Britain's water is somehow better or cleaner.
Along with:
What went wrong with the NHS
What went wrong with Britains trains
In fact what does actually work in this country?
the tory VIP lane ;)
tories ruin everything and never provide anything. im not a huge fan of labour but at least they build things and dont privatise as much
Coffey is a waste of space and taxpayers money!
As with all privatisation
Profit
Profit
Profit
🤦
Mixing sewage with rain was not a mistake. The rain flushes the sewers. No rain in the sewage would clog up the system with solids. The mistake is lack of investment by privatisation for profit.
the british agencies that look after our waterways are great at one thing,forgetting there responsibilities,there's a partly blocked stream that floods every year as they wont go and clear it but wont give anyone permission to either,maintenance is key and its forgotten about
I'd say sod their permission in that case. I'm sure a local farmer would be happy to help get it cleared.
@@Croz89 yeah then end up getting fined for doing the right thing they dont do 😅
@@harrythompson6977 Threaten to leak the story to the press, that'll shut em up!
We privatised it. That's what went wrong. A profit-making organism was inserted between the people who need water (ie everyone) and the organisation devoted to supply in it. That organism sucked up money that would otherwise be devoted to maintenance and making sure that standards would be met. Not hard to understand why it all went so wrong. The railways are exactly the same.
A surprisingly technically accurate account, thankyou.
I loved the twist at the end of this - that the singer of the Undertones is now a clean water campaigner. Just disappointed that he didn't knock out a few bars of Teenage Kicks for us.
Look at the way the japanese do it, Tokyo's drainage/water system is a marvel.
long term planning in UK? under tories? no chance.
Different culture different attitudes
Different culture and different attitudes
We protest way too much in this country.
The issue is honestly not in the design, the issues is with privatisation of the system itself and the insentives involved with that and big corporate companies, i was a drainage engineer for 10+ years and i have to say although this video portrays that english drains are mostly victorian being the main issue, they are far from that, for years on end all of these new housing estates we’ve built have all been seperate foul and rainwater drainage, so on new builds at least the practice of seperate systems is already in place.
A big issue still remains though that the old drainage is mostly still in place, and anywhere older than 30/40 years is most definitely combined.
We could really do with a national reform, just like we did with national grid we need a set of investors or a budget at very least to be able to make new systems like this
PRIVATISATION ALWAYS MEANS KICKBACKS FOR TORIES. That's why they do it
The problem is the average eligible voter in the UK.
The average voter did give the conservatives a mandate in 2010, again in 2015, again in 2017 and again in 2019.
The evidence is that when water supplies and waste systems were privatised the service worsened. Now we have had the experiment and had the results can we admit that public is better than private, and get our water back.
worse and far more expensive. amazing eh?
A local farmer uses human waste as fertiliser and it absolutely reeks for many miles around, it’s much worse then manure. Not sure if that’s the same thing as ‘cake’.
Too many people in the country. Simple.
This.
too many tory voting morons i agree
Did they have rented it out to Hamas ?
If a city cannot deal with its public works adequately they deserve the consequences.
We suffer the consequences though..
What went wrong with the British Sewage system? Answer: it is privatized.
What went wrong with the British Railway? Answer: it is privatized.
What went wrong with the British Postal Service? Answer: it is privatized.
What went wrong with the British Energy providers? Answer: it is privatized.
What is going on with the failing NHS? It is being privatized.
Were are the profits of the privatized British Oil and Gas? They are going into the pockets of wealthy businessmen (see how Norway did that).
Why are the enormous leaks in the British drink water network not fixed and grew to 1 trillion liters of lost drinking water in England and Wales via leaky pipes? Answer: it is privatized.
Someone with half a brain would almost recognize a trend here.
Nope! Wrong!!! Scotland is British!!! And guess what! Their water is NOT privatised!!!
Privatisation compounded by post Brexit lack of oversight and consequences for illegal practice.
It is only a pipes problem, because the private sector haven't invested sufficiently to rectify the issue once realized.
Its the wrong type of WATER !!!!
Mostly water pollution is the public's fault, not the water companies. Desist from disposing fat, oil, grease, wet wipes, female sanitary products in the sewer network. Blockages, flooding and pollution can be prevented. Take responsibility for your own actions.
Privatisation with the funneling of profits to shareholders at the expense of repairs and the health of the people paying the bills.
i know i know....was it because shareholders were put first?
Did this film mention why there are more sewage spills in to the sea in recent years (post Brexit) or did I miss it?
asset stripping enabled by privatisation is what ‘happened’
We have come a long way from the Victorians but we are still connecting rainwater pipes to sewage pipes, me my self have got 15 waterbutts and if they over flow the water goes in to soakaways, every year in the part of Kent i live ends off with hosepipe bans and there are thousands of new houses being built and they will all be plumped in to an old cistern that can't keep up, its about time the water company's started sorting this problem out.
What about making the actual toilets in our homes into a process plant for the household tht gets fed into tanks then the tanks get replaced already processed and that way no waste goes into our rivers and the waste can be disturbed locally for fertilisers?
GAZA STOLE IT!
Water, energy and transportation should always be in public hands, all profits ploughed back into the industry and for the good of the people, not share holders !
It was privatised ....that's what went wrong with it....same as the trains...and utilities. #ThatcherWasWrong
I wish the goverment would be open and honest about over population being the reason for the sewage crisis
What went wrong?
People vote Tory.
As it’s part of the STrategic infrastructure, Govt. oversight should be heavy… Compared to say Japan and Scandinavian countries, the UK’s so called future investments are mostly either minimal, relative, or simply short-term in real terms.