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This from Cllr Richard Quigley, Labour Isle of Wight councillor for Cowes North. Ed
There has, quite rightly, been a lot of attention on Southern Water’s all-too frequent discharges of sewage into the Solent. However, the issue of poor infrastructure running beneath our roads and pavements also needs to be kept at the top of the agenda.
This issue was brought into focus recently during the resurfacing of Moorgreen Road in Cowes which is in my ward. On visiting the site, it immediately became clear that the pipework serving domestic properties was hopelessly antiquated. Numerous leaks were sprung (some still not repaired) as the road was excavated extending a resurfacing scheme that should have lasted days into one that instead lasted weeks – much to the inconvenience of locals.
Lead pipes still being used
Amazingly, it also became clear that there were still lead pipes bringing water into people’s homes.
Though Southern Water assures me that this meets all safety requirements, that we still have lead pipes taking drinking water into homes is a poor indictment of the age of its domestic water infrastructure.
800 leak repairs in three months
Subsequent enquiries have yielded some similarly astonishing and unacceptable results. On 800 occasions between May and August this year, Southern Water needed roadworks, many causing local inconvenience, to repair leaks. Much of this work was on recently resurfaced roads.
Furthermore, in the past two years, 278 notices have been issued on behalf of the IW Council requiring work by Southern Water to ensure the safety of road users is not compromised by faulty apparatus. Southern Water has yet to respond to around half of those.
3m litres of water lost every day
I was told by Southern Water directly that three million litres of water (which is about 30,000 baths) is lost from the Island’s water system every single day.
That is an appalling waste of water at a time when are all trying to preserve natural resources.
Service falling well short of what we should expect
All this is a clear failure of privatisation. A service for which all of us pay considerable amounts annually is falling well short of what we should expect.
The IW Council’s scrutiny committee, of which I am a member, is looking at this issue – the MP also. I like him, view Southern Water’s announcement of investment to come with caution.
Image: alanstanton under CC BY 2.0
