No reason why water and sewage disposal responsibilities could not be returned to local councils - Yorkshire Post Letters

I congratulate The Yorkshire Post on publishing three splendid letters about the disgraceful behaviour of water companies dumping sewage into our rivers and the sea. (YP Sat 27/05/23).

But I must correct Nigel Boddy of Darlington, Water was never a nationalised service. It was the foundation of local government.

In the early 1830s when there were widespread cholera outbreaks, Leeds local Dr Robert Baker realised that the poorest areas in Leeds town, where there was overcrowding with dirt streets littered with excrement, suffered far more from the disease than more affluent areas. He campaigned for the then Town Council to bring clean water to the town, take away the sewage and pave the streets.

Leeds Town Council used its newly formed corporation to do this. Other council corporations followed.

It was the Heath Conservative Government which took water away from local councils in 1974 and created bigger and, at the time, not-for-profit organisations such as Yorkshire Water. But even then the salaries increased enormously, particularly the salaries of the bosses.

The creation of these larger organisations meant it was easy for the Thatcher Conservative Government to privatise water and sewage disposal, taking away from the water rate payers what they had already paid for and owned.

Yes, Leeds did have overflow sewers which could discharge into the River Aire. But they were “storm” sewers for the rare event of a storm when there was a torrent of water and, in an emergency, surplus liquid was discharged into what would be a high level river.

Now these private companies are, on a regular basis even in dry weather, discharging both liquid and solids into the sea and into our rivers which are often our drinking water. Famous Lake District Windermere is dying because of this.

I am very much in favour of public ownership of our essential services. There is no reason why water and sewage disposal could not be returned to local councils which are now bigger than they were when the corporations were formed.

Councils are more responsive to the problems in their local areas rather than us having to rely on distant Whitehall making political decisions on where money is to be spent.