WWT ROUND TABLE 2009
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challenge we face. We are now trying to get
people to wake up to the potential of swine
flu and I am not saying that that is not a
serious issue – far from it – but to the man
in the street, he thinks: “Hang on a bit –
they told us that three years ago and
nothing happened. They told us that we
were going to run out of water because we
had major droughts but the year after that
we ended up being flooded.”
The level of healthy cynicism out there
should not be under-estimated, which
makes me think about communication
again. We have to be very clear about what
we say, and we have to choose our
messages carefully. We should recognise
that we are not necessarily talking to a
receptive audience, particularly when many
of the things that we are talking about make
sense in the long term. The short-term
implication is that customers will have to
pay more.
Richard Aylard Steve raised an important
point a little while ago. I think what he was
getting at was that if it is socially and
politically unacceptable to charge customers
Stephen Bird: 90% of the costs will be in the wholesale part a price for water which would really make
them take it very seriously, as in Berlin, then
Bob Baty That is the challenge. In terms of we currently stand means that you will only we should look for other ways to get them
value for money, frankly, there is very little ever tweak things on the margins. to value water, ie, not just in economic
that is better. I forget what the statistics are terms. Given that there is a trust deficit in
now, because I am a couple of years out of John Cuthbert All of this raises some very certain areas, although in fact I think we are
date, but it used to be that 1000 pints of significant challenges for us and for trusted a good deal more than the energy
water a day, even in the South West, was government policy and regulatory companies for instance, which may be cold
round about £1 a day – and there isn’t frameworks. We are just at the very comfort, but we are quite well up there, it
much you can get for £1 a day in those beginning of thinking about the implications may help if we can bring in people like the
sorts of volumes. However, when it goes up, of embodying some of the kinds of big green groups and the EA to give us a
it is the sensitivity of the customers. Part of principles and incentives that we have third party endorsement of this.
the challenge in promoting the sustainable talked about, into the regulatory framework, We just announced, last night, a joint
water environment that we are talking about and how on earth we will do this. The project with WWF and Waterwise. We are
is to get that linkage in place, about what Walker Efficiency Initiative just puts another going to have a big campaign in Swindon.
you are actually getting in value for money. obligation on the industry and tells the Swindon’s water comes from the upper
People pay whatever it is – 30p, 40p or 50p industry to carry the cost, without any reaches of the river Kennet which, of course,
– for one bottle of water, and 1000 pints is recognition in the review process. Not only is a SSSI chalk stream and, by general
so much? is it not an incentive, but it is actually a agreement, over-abstracted. It goes to
disincentive. Swindon and, from Swindon, it goes
Stephen Bird I did not know whether If you then track that through into retail through people’s homes, the water
Martin was alluding to potentially retail separation, someone has to think very hard treatment works, back into the Ray and then
separation and different price mechanisms about how to incentivise the retailer, the Thames, so the Kennet never sees it
around that, to encourage efficiency in because the retailer is even more exposed again, right from the headwaters.
different settings. However, you come back to the ramifications of volume changes. The
to the fact that 90% of the costs will be in potential for unintended consequences in all
the wholesale part. The issue for me, in of this are very significant and we have to
“The man in the street
addressing Ian’s challenge is in the remember that we are talking about this at a
wholesale part of the value chain, not the time when our customers do not have very
thinks: ‘Hang on a bit.
retail part. much trust.
They told us that three
There is an issue about how far you That is not just with the water industry,
can go with price signals with customers but with a great many things. People have
years ago and nothing
around that, when the fundamental cost told them about the bird flu pandemic, but
of harvesting, treating and distributing as nothing happened, and therein lies the happened’”
20 Round Table June 2009
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