Government to take on private sewers

[Peter Crosland]

out in a press release and rehashing it without studying what it says. For a start any estimate that varies by a factor of almost five to one is not an estimate at all but pure guesswork. Looking at the figures in more detail the estimate is that the cost would be £4.2 billion but does not specify over what period but lets assume it is an annual cost. Dividing £4,200,000,000 by £14 per household gives an answer of 300,000,000 for the number of households in the UK which is clearly absurd. Just for argument's sake assume that there are 25,000,000 houses in the UK and multply that by £14 gives a figure of £350,000,000.

The article states that 250,000 kilometres of pipe are involved. Using the same estimate of 25,000,000 houses in the UK gives an average length per property of 100 metres that seems very wide of the mark.

Unless I have got the decimal points in the wrong place as far as I can see the whole article is complete bollocks!

Paying £14 per annum to effectively insure against the heavy costs of potential repairs in this context does not seem unreasonable. At the bottom end of the scale £3 sounds like an absolute gift.

Peter Crosland

[Dave Liquorice]

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Think I'll go along with the "complete bollocks" rather than shifted decimal point.

It really doesn't define what the water co's are having to take over or what period that =A34.2 billion cost is over.

The water co's better not put anything at all on my water supply bill to pay for this. I deal with my own shit and surface water on my property at my expense. Unless of course the water co's going to take over all the drains outside the walls of my buildings and the septic tank and the drainage fields.

Total lack of understanding or knowledge from journo who put that story up. Not exactly difficult to find real information, as has been shown by those who have posted links to the water.org.uk site.

[Peter Crosland]

Think I'll go along with the "complete bollocks" rather than shifted decimal point.

It really doesn't define what the water co's are having to take over or what period that £4.2 billion cost is over.

The water co's better not put anything at all on my water supply bill to pay for this. I deal with my own shit and surface water on my property at my expense. Unless of course the water co's going to take over all the drains outside the walls of my buildings and the septic tank and the drainage fields.

Total lack of understanding or knowledge from journo who put that story up. Not exactly difficult to find real information, as has been shown by those who have posted links to the water.org.uk site.

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I have lodged a formal complaint with the BBC. You can so as well at

Crosland

[Peter Crosland]

Think I'll go along with the "complete bollocks" rather than shifted decimal point.

It really doesn't define what the water co's are having to take over or what period that £4.2 billion cost is over.

The water co's better not put anything at all on my water supply bill to pay for this. I deal with my own shit and surface water on my property at my expense. Unless of course the water co's going to take over all the drains outside the walls of my buildings and the septic tank and the drainage fields.

Total lack of understanding or knowledge from journo who put that story up. Not exactly difficult to find real information, as has been shown by those who have posted links to the water.org.uk site. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I sent a complaint to the BBC and received this reply within two hours.

"Dear Mr Crosland

Many thanks for your e-mail.

Unfortunately, the numbers originally given to us by Defra were wrong, and the department later sent us two! corrections. Having said that, we should have spotted the mistake ourselves. We have now corrected our story.

The £4.2bn sum is the total cost over 40 years, while the cost for households is an annual number.

Apologies for getting it wrong.

Regards,

Tim Weber Business and technology editor BBC News interactive

more information about how the BBC handles complaints, please click here: "I have asked them to go away and research the article properly.

Peter Crosland

[Steve Walker]

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40 years? I could understand a yearly figure or 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, but why do people choose figures like 40 years?

SteveW

[Roger Mills]

My water bill is in 3 parts - for water supply, sewage removal and surface water drainage.

I assume that any additional charges relating to the water company's new responsibilities will only affect the 2nd and 3rd of these.

[Dave Liquorice]

Good ! A proper response from a real person at the BBC. He even admits they screwed up the sanity check, wonders will never cease.

[Dave Liquorice]

Presumably that is the expected life of a small drain or sewer. The maths then work 4.2x10^9 / 40 / 25x10^6 =3D =A34.20/household/year.

[Dave Liquorice]

I only have water supply. As you say any additional costs that they incur for this enforced take over better only apply to the sewage/surafce water parts of the bill. But do you really trust 'em...

[The Other Mike]

Because that will be the asset life decided by the regulator. The same happens with electricity and gas infrastructure.

Not all assets will (by design or intent) last as long, some may last much longer. On the value of the asset they are allowed to return a set amount of income (by imposing charges on users) relative to RPI per annum for the 40 year life to cover replacement and other associated costs.

[Huge]

Damn right. The b*st*rds never replied to my complaint about "Eggheads".

(Show the damn things in the right order!)

[Steve Walker]

But the asset life is immaterial, as it will be permanently rolling over as "new" sewers age, so whether you quote for the asset life or average it over any other period, it's equally valid. Even if they want to use

40 years internally, it would be far more sensible to quote an annual or 10 yearly cost for public consumption.

SteveW

[Tim Streater]

Getting the public to appreciate the notion of *ongoing maintenance* is often a hard one. My sister used to bleat about how the water rate "before privatisation" was only £4/annum or somesuch. In vain did I point out that they had been spending nothing on maintenance.

[The Other Mike]

In the "Tabloid " world you'd only need the headline 14 quid figure or whatever. In the real world of Viz and the FT you also need to know the asset life and the asset value.

You miss the point entirely on how the regulation of privatised utilities is implemented. If the asset life was declared as 10 years the charges permitted to be passed on to the customer would be four times what they are predicted to be. If it was declared as 1 year then they could charge forty times what they are predicted to charge.

The declared asset value, the declared asset life, and the return on asset capital are fundamental parts of charging the customer.

Given that the supplier MUST maintain these pipes to an agreed standard the ACTUAL asset life is only of concern to the company, how it manages that asset and on what schedule they replaces it, how they justify its replacement, how it replaces it, what standard it replaces it to, etc is of primary concern to the regulator and the company.

The company and regulator could find a few years down the line that this type of asset can be replaced on a 50 year schedule. The cost to the customer would drop on a per annum basis. Conversely the assets could be failing before 40 years and prices charged to the customer would rise. But, such step changes only take place after 5 or more years at a formal review by the regulator.

[Frank Erskine]

Who actually "owns" these private sewers anyway? What happens if they don't want to sell them to the water companies?

[Dave Liquorice]

Presumably all the householders who share a sewer.

They retain the responsibilty for the maintainance and repair?

I can see it getting messy if one or more joint "owners" don't want to "sell". I can't see this being a real sale as in a consideration being exchanged, just a transfer of liabilty. TBH though would you want to retain liabilty if some one was going to take it from you for =A314/year?