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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Tapping out: How privatisation wrecked our waterworks

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2023

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Thames Water recently announced £14 billion of debt. How does an essential utility haemorrhage so much money? More than three decades after they were privatised, could renationalisation be the solution? Laura Makin-Isherwood is joined by Rob Branston, associate professor in business economics, to discuss how the privatisation of water companies in England has failed and the solutions to clean up our water woes. “Privatisation is a political ideology, but we need to remember that in the 80s we didn’t have good water services.” “There is a collective debt of £60 billion across our water companies.” “The debts have gone up because of interest on the existing debt.” www.patreon.com/bunkercast  Written and presented by Laura Makin-Isherwood. Producer: Kasia Tomasiewicz. Assistant producer: Adam Wright. Audio editor: Robin Leeburn. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:05.5

photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

0:11.8

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0:13.0

I loved going to college.

0:14.0

It's good you can retrain and do something.

0:16.0

Yeah, yeah.

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after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome back to the bunker you'll need to know on news and politics.

1:08.7

I'm Laura Macon Isherwood.

1:10.3

How much a month do you pay for your water and what choice do you have if you're not happy with your provider?

1:15.8

Is there even an alternative? If you're listening for a number of nations around the world the truth is you might have at least some say on your H2O but in England it's a different story

1:26.7

that's because England's water industry was privatised in 1989 a decision by Margaret

1:32.2

Thatcher to try to increase competition and efficiency.

1:35.9

But more than three decades on, one of those private businesses, Thames Water, appears to be

1:41.1

in a bit of hot water.

1:43.0

The utility company which is responsible for 15 million customers across London

1:47.4

and the Thames Valley has revealed it has debts of around 14 billion pounds.

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