Water trouble

aS USUaL after the first days of summer, Project Drought is resurrected to allow ‘experts’ a platform to pontificate on the immoderation of consumers. But the blame should be placed on governments and the water companies.

governments: for not matching the rise in population with provisions for utilities and for not effectively regulating privatised water companies.

Water companies: for ignoring the need for reservoirs in favour of the environmentally destructive option of extraction direct from rivers. There is also a risk to public health: in the summer when river levels are low, there are high concentrations of contaminates from agriculture and sewage. KEITH r. MACNAMArA,

Downton, Wilts. THE water companies want consumers to take greater care of supplies despite the fact it is their pipes that are leaking and we are continuing with an incessant programme of house-building.

Here in Kent, the irony is that we’re surrounded on three sides by water yet suffer from supply shortage as we rely on underground aquifers and too few reservoirs.

Nobody takes that into account when new homes are being built. PETEr CHEGWIDDEN,

Sheppey, Kent.