Water companies should pipe down

HERE we are again. A spell of dry weather and a water company starts bleating about a hosepipe ban. Can there possibly be an easier job than being a director of a privatised water company? They pay themselves as if they are in a competitive market, but each is a monopoly in its own area.

Every year, water charges go up but there are still summer shortages as they spend as little as they can get away with maintaining and repairing infrastructure. This diverts the rest of the money into their pockets and those of their shareholders.

Water shortages are not caused by overuse, but by their incompetence and greed. Railway renationalisation may be a Labour priority, but water companies should not be far behind. John Lee, St Ives, Cambs

Here we go again, a prolonged spell of hot weather and, sure enough, a dreaded hosepipe ban is announced. We are an island surrounded by water, so why can we not build desalination plants as the European islands do? They never run short, nor do they have to let gardens die from lack of water. They are too expensive to build, we are told. But with global warming, this is going to be a problem more often in the future, so please, someone use some common sense and get building. Irene Qualey Folkestone, Kent

So, the water companies want us all to save water. A recent report stated these firms needed to spend more of their profits on mending leaking pipes instead of putting it in shareholders’ pockets. Basically, they want us to go on paying in full for a poor service.

People should be demanding to know how they will compensate us. If they won’t fix the leaks they should be made to pay money back to customers until they are willing to provide the service people pay for. R Machen, Pontefract, West Yorks

We must be the laughing stock of the world. A few weeks without rain and hosepipe bans are starting to come into force. Spain is one of the biggest producers of tomatoes in the world and can go for months without rain, but nothing needs water more than a tomato plant. Similarly, Egyptians grow potatoes and then we have Greece, Morocco and many other hot countries that survive without much water.

It’s a joke to think we are among the G8 and we can’t do something simple like preserve water. D Dunbar, Sherburn, Co Durham

With this long dry spell we’re having, we should be mindful about saving water. It’s common sense we shouldn’t use hosepipes to wash our cars or water our gardens when the water levels in our reservoirs are low.

I don’t know why people complain about it. After all, it will soon pass and we’ll no doubt be back to our usual wet weather. Sandra Clarkson, Oldham Gtr Manchester

Perhaps water firms could build more reservoirs and stop leaks using some of the vast sums of money paid to senior executives. When these money-making firms start to put customers before their CEOs, they will elicit more cooperation from us. In the meantime, they could use their crocodile tears to fill our rapidly depleting reservoirs. Kim Reynolds Cromer, Norfolk