Government to take on private sewers

[HappyHunter]

Interesting ....

[ARWadsworth]

added cost by raising bills". Are these the same experts that worked out that if you are stood out in the rain then you will get wet?

A little more reading here

[The Other Mike]

£162 per household *per annum* mantenance cost?

I suppose as more people move to metered water the less they can extort by traditional means via the water rates.

[Andy Cap]

That's just taking the piss and totally extortionate. We have a private sewer serving 18 houses. It's been blocked once in 35 years and the cost was shared and if I remember rightly, it was £18 a household and still some complained it was nothing to do with them, so in the end the Council administered it, which added 33% to the cost. £162/annum would be nothing short of robbery and is simply yet another additional tax.

Andy C

[hugh]

Not a tax as it would go to the water company not government. And if they are taking over the sewers then why not the water supply pipe also?

Unite Utilities keep offering me insurance for pipes which are my responsibility but on reading the small print virtually nothing is covered.

[jgharston]

I used to get constituents **DAMANDING** that the council resurface their unadopted road....

JGH

[Cod Roe]

Sewers are drains used by more than one property, and they are also taking on laterals, which are drains that are used solely by a neighbour but run through your property. They aren't taking on private drains, which are the ones on your land serving only you. In general water pipes will be ones on your land serving just you, in the case of shared water pipes they are pushing for separation anyway, since it is easier to meter, so them taking on water pipes isn't of great benefit.

[ARWadsworth]

Now when the drains were blocked 2 houses down from my late Grandads house it cost many hundreds of pounds to fix. The costs were shared by 3 householders (well their insurance cos) and also involved removing all the trees that had caused the problem and any trees that might also cause a future problem.

[Andy Cap]

I accept that it could involve several hundred pounds, but not *every* year ! I'd rather take the risk and put it on the house insurance. There is no way the premium would be that kind of figure - well apart from the fact that the Insurance Cos are out to rip us off as well ! I'm not really that bitter ! ;-)

[Andy Cap]

Well highway robbery then! I described it as a tax because it will not go towards the intended expenditure, but be diverted to other work.

[Frank Erskine]

water companies.

[Graham.]

cost many hundreds of pounds to fix. The costs were

removing all the trees that had caused the problem and any

I'd rather take the risk and put it on the house

apart from the fact that the Insurance Cos are out to

Precisely what I tell the guy from Homeserve when he rings for a chat... ...about every other week.

[The Other Mike]

We all knew that, but just how much cover does a £162 per annum insurance premium provide and wouldn't you prefer to self insure or find a better deal than let the water companies screw even more out of you?

[Onetap]

SFAIK, no-one has mentioned a specific charge.

I can see the water companies tapping this for every penny. A blockage on a shared sewer must involve the water company if the pipe is their property. I'm confident that they will contrive to be vastly more expensive than a jetting contractor, called as and when required.

I also think the legislation is flawed. They are acquiring ownership of privately owned pipes on private property without the owners' consent and without payment. I'm sure there was some European rights legislation that prevented any assets being taken without compensation.

[Steve Walker]

Which is a great pity as these are generally the main problem. Our drains collapsed under the road and under our driveway. Householders are of course not allowed to dig up the road, so cannot sort it out themselves, yet they are held responsible for it, at whatever cost! Luckily in our case, it was shared by by our neighbour and pre 1937, so it fell to United Utilities to take on the cost - which I only knew about through this newsgroup.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

I don't know if the atricle has changed, but the BBC now refer to 3 to

14 GBP per household.

SteveW

[The Other Mike]

The article has changed but 4.2bn divided by 25 million households = £168 (exactly!)

So their total is still wrong.

[Tim Watts]

shared system...

It's difficult to tell with the strict interpretation on the word "sewer" vs "drain" (and the expectation that the journalist probably has not use the strict definition) - does this also mean that people with a singledirect connection will also have responsibility for their connection devolved to the water company?

[Tim Watts]

And if your insurance co is like mine (AXA, the filthy bastards) then as soon as someone wibbles "nothing to do with me", the insurance co will bury its head in the sand and deny it has the power to do anything...

[Charles Fearnley]

Have a look at this page, and the sub page that opens from it, for who will have responsibilty for what.

you are at the top end of a run it looks as though houseolders will only have to deal with the short sections which (usually) join via the first manhole.

Charles F