Metering needn’t be linked to profits. It’s reasonable to expect users of water to pay the costs of collection, storage, and delivery of their water, and that could be done through charging for volume used, without including a profit element.

The ‘leakage’ issue is a red herring. You only pay for the water you use, recorded through the meter on your premises.

What is unreasonable is that two of us living in a property, who use water for nothing other than drinking, cooking, and washing our clothes and ourselves, have to pay the same amount for water as the family next door with three children, who water the lawn and flower-beds all summer, wash three cars every weekend, etc., for no other reason than our properties have the same notional ‘Rateable Value’.

In fact, we are metered, and when we got a meter installed our water charge dropped significantly, because we are careful with our use of water. We pay for what we use, not some baseless figure dreamed up in the dark, secretive recesses of the Local Valuation Office. Let those who use the most, pay the most.

I truly fail to see why metering water supply is ‘unconscionable’ - you don’t expect your gas to be supplied for a notional charge based on some airy-fairy ‘value’ placed on your property, so why would you expect water to be supplied on that basis.