No need for a hosepipe to keep the car clean
SIR – We are told to take pride in having a dirty car, which proves we are not using a hosepipe.
I am 90 years old and have been cleaning my cars for the past 67 years using a bucket and sponge, with perfectly satisfactory results. I will, however, reduce my water consumption to half a bucket. Michael Gates
Eastbourne, East Sussex
SIR – Right on cue, when the weather warms ups, water companies leap to beg us to reduce consumption and propose hosepipe bans.
Water is one of the most recyclable commodities the Earth has. We don’t consume it, but merely borrow it. Rain falls, we use it, it flows into the rivers and the seas, it evaporates to the clouds and it rains again.
All we have to do is collect it and distribute it. Lack of investment by water companies over the years to build reservoirs and improve distribution infrastructure is the real reason for a water shortage in the summer.
If oil and gas companies can build storage and pipelines to supply households, service stations and airports, why can’t water companies divert more of their shareholder dividends to the task?
Tony Cross
Sevenoaks, Kent
SIR – In Kent we are warned to reduce water consumption as the situation is dire. Some of us have warned for a long time of the need to secure water supplies, but are used to being ignored.
We had a dry winter and have now had a dry summer. Another dry autumn and winter and we really will be in trouble. No one is addressing the matter.
Politicians want more houses without considering the concomitant problems.
Philip Wilson-sharp
Fordwich, Kent
SIR – Philip Johnston (Comment, July 27) wrote that it must be possible to move water around this country. It is indeed possible, as proved by the Victorians with their Thirlmere water scheme. In the late 19th century, the Thirlmere valley in the Lake District was flooded to make the Thirlmere reservoir but the clever bit was the water transportation. Conduits were built between Thirlmere and Manchester, with the water travelling the whole distance by gravity alone.
Instead of pouring money into white-elephant rail schemes, the Government should address the lack of water storage.
Peter Wickison
Beeford, East Yorkshire
SIR – An enormous amount of clean water is lost because of leaking flush valves on push-button lavatory cisterns. The symptom is a constant trickle into the pan.
Replacing them with traditional lever-operated cisterns with syphons would prevent this waste. Joe Greaves
Fleckney, Leicestershire
SIR – In the 1976 drought, we put a brick in our cistern to reduce the water used with each flush.
We’ve moved several times but I wouldn’t mind betting that it is still there today.
Brian J Leek
La Ronde, Charente-maritime, France