The Government will have to provide the solution to sewage pollution - Yorkshire Post Letters

It really is quite unedifying to witness the squabbling between the various parties concerned over the disastrous condition into which our water supplies and sewage removal processes have descended.

Notwithstanding the marvellous advances made in the world of pharmaceuticals and in the delivery of modern medicine, it has long been recognised that the single most significant factor in any nation's efforts to deliver good health to its citizens is the provision of clean water and the safe removal of wastes.

These two processes should be regarded as fundamental obligations and contracts between peoples and their governments, and should no more be subject to the demands of shareholders and other investors than should the provision of health care through the NHS, or the sustaining of safe environments through our police forces.

We have lived through the privatisation experiment for the last four decades, during which time, it has been revealed, water shareholders have received more than £1,000 from every UK citizen at no cost or risk to themselves.

This surely, in all sanity, cannot continue. The experiment is a failure and should be abandoned,

Victorian planners thought it was a good idea to mix sewage with waste surface water. No modern water engineer would agree with this and we have a direly urgent need to replace all our Victorian sewers with two separate systems.

The investment needed for this clearly will not come from the water companies who seem unable to consider any source of funding other than increased bills to customers.

Such schemes can only originate in governments, acting on behalf of their citizens, and we, the citizens, need to tell our government to end the arguments and to get on with it.