mordwydd

*"Governments have to grasp this nettle and spend those large amounts of money. Since they don't have it they will have to raise it, in the only way they know how, by taxes."*

Have you thought this through?

Water companies aren't in public ownership, they have no special status, entitling them to expect the taxpayer to fund miles and miles of expensive new pipelines and pumping stations. Money for a National water grid would have to be raised in the time-honoured fashion - by increasing the cost of the product to consumers. I'm sure that people in Wales and Scotland would be delighted (not)to fork out more for their water because of a new pipeline taking it away to England.

In any case, pumping millions of litres of water across the country would cost a fortune - probably as much as the cost of the water - quite apart from the cost of buying the rights to bury pipelines under privately-owned land.

It's not the answer. The answer is to reduce consumption, and eliminate waste. Water companies are spending billions on renewing ancient underground water pipes, and as a result substantial progress is being made with waste-reduction. Metering water is another positive step, but meters cost money, and progress in that direction isn't as fast as the suppliers would like.

All of us can reduce our daily water consumption if we try, and if we don't try those of us in the affected areas may find it being done for us quite soon, by way of supply rationing.

"To my way of thinking it needs to be progressive."

It is progressive, but not in the way you propose. That would be unduly expensive. Isolating properties with an external tap (for instance) would cost money just to get the data - how do you set about finding out how many houses in an area have outside water taps?

The water companies have a better way. Meters are fitted as a matter of routine whenever an underground crew has to do any work on a mains connection - although the water isn't necessarily metered at that point. All new builds automatically have water meters installed, ready for when the water supplier initiates metering in the area.

In addition, there's a rolling programme of meter installation. Whenever s street has its water mains renewed all the houses are automatically connected to a meter.

It's a piecemeal approach, but ultimately it costs less.

Woolwell

I don't kow about other water companies,but here in the Thames Water region you can request that a meter is fitted.

I must admit that my "Do the Richest first" credentials were coming through there. Because, in my opinion, they would have the weakest arguments when objecting to installation.

The External Tap bit was a sop to the Hose Ban Brigade and I was initially going for the details held by the Planning Dept, which should be fairly easy to access.