Lizzie,

paying for water is a difficult area and I agree with a lot of what you say about local vs national bills. I'm certainly no great fan of privatization either.

Unfortunately it's not as simple as "corporate water lords owning the very stuff that falls from the skies". The OFWAT determination is very likely to lead to harder working conditions or redundancies for the many workers in the water industry who provide a very safe product, on demand, and take away the waste, and treat it to prevent environmental damage or public health risk. There is, believe me, a huge amount of work involved in doing this, and it's usually those on the front line who suffer when the industry is squeezed. See this press release from the GMB.

I quite agree with you regarding the issue of excessive profits going to a few individuals. It's a massive issue which seems to be getting worse in many industries. But do you think water workers should take a pay cut or lose their jobs to keep water bills down? Compare this with your original post regarding public sector workers in Ireland...

Pete

(who does a mucky job in the water industry and is certainly not a corporate water lord!)