There is to be a public meeting on Wednesday 23 September at Gosforth Civic Theatre to discuss how Northumbrian people can take back control of their water.
It has long been argued that the management of water resources in this country could hardly be worse. There are continual reports of agricultural runoff leading to the unbalancing the composition of inland waters causing algal bloom, of raw sewage being discharged into coastal and inland waters and chemical pollution increasing base level toxicity.
The level of fines is derisory while water companies continue to make huge profits and their shareholders do very well out of them. Indeed, since the water industry was privatised under the Thatcher government in 1989, the water industry has been run for the benefit of the shareholders and not primarily to produce clean water for the public to drink and bathe in.
It is little wonder then that many people are proposing that water should be taken back into some form of public ownership.
Possible solutions
One suggested solution for Northumbria Water is for a mutual society to be registered under the Cooperative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. Anybody that received their water supply from Northumbria Water or any other successor body would be eligible to be a member of such a company.
The aim of the company would be to produce a water company, with a mission of providing safe clean water for the people of our region, rather than simply for profits to be made and shareholders kept happy.
There have been too many examples of water pollution, high water bills for customers and other major problems, for the water industry to be able to stay in its present privatised form.
There are a number of different options for how the public could take back control of water including a top-down nationalised water industry similar to the nationalised industries that we had in the years immediately after the Second World War, or a more cooperative model, where consumers would own their own water company.
Meeting to explore options
There is a meeting on 23 September between 6 and 7:45 pm at Gosforth Civic Theatre which aims to explore whether a cooperative or mutual model for water is actually feasible.
The meeting will be chaired by Green Party councillor an ex North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll and the main speaker is water campaigner Norman Rides.
To find out more about the meeting and how you can book a place please see here .
Some of this article was based on this paper .
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