The hosepipe ban is only part of the story…

• WATER shortages are the result of water companies being gifted a monopoly on an essential service, and then closing reservoirs, leaking more water than they supply, and fly-tipping raw sewage in a frenzied effort to extort as much money as possible while doing as little in return as they can get away with.

It is nauseating that when talking about exemptions to usage bans Thames Water expresses concern for, “risk to human or animal health” when it is water company executives who are a risk to human and animal health by spraying millions of tons of excrement into rivers and lakes and onto beaches.

Street urination and, God help us, defecation are criminal offences but, far from being arrested, the water company criminals are rewarded with lottery-sized bonuses instead, presumably for services to the next pandemic: typhoid.

As an essential service, water and sewage processing should be nationalised at zero cost by imposing a fine for their disgusting behaviour that corres­ponds with whatever “compensation” they demand for being kicked off the gravy train.

MARTIN KENNEDY
Brewer Street, W1