Are water companies doing enough to protect our waterways?
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- England's Chief Medical Officer has warned people against swimming or even paddling in rivers this summer. Chris Whitty said even when sewage plants are working properly they're still releasing harmful bacteria into the water that could make people ill.
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It comes as the UK River Summit & Festival brings together environmentalists, businesses and members of the public to discuss the state of the UK's rivers.
Ruben Reuter went along to challenge the water minister on what he's doing about it.
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The whole country should be refusing to pay its bills.
At least 20% aren't paying their bills already. Hence the issue.
@@curiositycloset2359so your saying the rich water companies aren’t taking care of the water supply because people over a long period of time due to economic instability haven’t paid their bills? How much are people’s debts for water? As much as one persons salary at the top?
@curiositycloset2359 The issue is that water companies have run up huge debts, but instead of investing that money in infrastructure, it's just been funnelled out into shareholders' pockets. The whole privatisation of our utilities has been a massive gift.
THEY HAVENT DONE NOTHING in 33 YEARS EXEPT BORROW BILLIONS TO GIVE THEMSELVES MASSIVE SHAREHOLDER PAYMENT AND BOSSES BONUSES
Private companies have a single priority by design - to maximise profit. If they fail to do that, they can be sued by the shareholders. And that's why privatising the industry was stupid.
No not at all. They only care about their shareholders & profits. Every last one of them need to be held accountable & water (A VITAL RESOURCE) NEEDS to be nationalised along with rail, energy, & the post all of which having in private hands is a national security issue. The people dumping sewage into water ways & the people responsible for privatising water all need to be held accountable & serve jail time. British people really need to get into the habit of sueing like Americans
C4 news top reporter delivering an amazingly well constructed report.
Renationalise asap, please. At least then there would be some measure of accountability for the fecal flood.
Unbelievable that she said that nobody wants to see swimmers and kayakers stop using the rivers but wants to be able to pump sewage into rivers at an ‘ACCEPTABLE’ level. They just are NOT going to do anything about any of this. They need prison time and the companies need to be nationalised. NOW!
Emmm... No £11M provided from the Water restoration fund v £78Bn in Dividends paid by English Water Companies to shareholders
Good reporting
Why do I feel the minister wasn’t credible?
I was just coming to say.
Same answer to every question
Is the UK only country in the world where water supply is in the hand of the private sector? I am watching this from Japan -- water supply is managed by individual local governments and I can say that there is no problem in supply and quality. One challenge is that with declining population, revenues from fees are declining as the numbers of residents are decreasing.
From wiki: Broadly speaking, there are two forms of private sector participation in water supply and sanitation. In a full privatization, assets are permanently sold to a private investor. In a public-private partnership, ownership of assets remains public and only certain functions are delegated to a private company for a specific period. Full privatization of water supply and sanitation is an exception today, being limited to England, Chile and some cities in the United States. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are the most common form of private sector participation in water supply and sanitation today.
Good bye tories you won't be missed
If you think this is not also on Labour, then you are blind.
Same at energy companies as well then. Ripped off robbed blind. These companies should be brought to justice for the robbery of elderly and many others.
For the shareholders……more than enough.
No. All about profit rather than the people. Good interview 👍
😢PROFITS OVER PEOPLES 😢❤
Make the water company share holders pay! Not the tax payers!!!
Arguably the politicians aren't doing their job.
I don’t think you could argue against that.
The Tories are there to serve the interests of the wealthy. They're doing a great job.
Great questions from Ruben. He got the minister scrambling desperately.
Minister talking about more investment , ( we all know where that will be coming from ) Tax payers will pay and the private water companies will carry on taking the profits
2:10 The beautiful chalk stream reminded of John Everett Millais' painting, Ophelia.
Though that would be in Denmark.
Poorly researched C4 . As a fellow Cambridge man I shuddered to witness Coleridge's great RIME , misquoted !
No. Obviously the water companies are not doing their fucking job.
3:57 Can someone with authority please fire and replace this woman?
Did she just ignore the part about sewage and faecal matter in it?
The problem is immigration, not the water companies. over the last two decades 10 million immigrants added to the Uk. The government should always discuss the sewage footprint of immigration. lets do the maths. 10 million multiplied by 365 days in a year, multiplied by a circa 2 kgs of turds and urine equates to an astronomical amount of turds and urine that has arrived in the British isles dumped yearly on to us. It literally works out to millions of metric tonnes of turds and urine per year that has been allowed to be sprinkled onto the British isles and to expect the water companies to deal with it is unreasonable. This is Scientific fact and is not up for debate. The solution would be 10 million removed from the british isles would restore the turd urine balance of the nation to equilibrium
Water companies are doing what it can to increase the Prices, They have increased by £100 this year almost a 25% increase.
A big fat NO.
Anyone who makes fun of the journalist should be ashamed of themselves!!! 😡😤😡
This video *thumbsup* We need to fix the system and our water resources.
Privatisation = shareholders and CEOs/Directors/etc. Their world is all about extracting as much money as possible whilst doing as little as possible.
The tories have only been in for 14 years.
Perhaps the waterways have 20 million more people using them than registered? Like they say
The correct question is do they do ANYTHING to protect OUR waterways?
There doing Jack shite.
Are you going to cover Karl Nell’s appearance at SALT conference?
Another thing for the current generation to look forward to then 🙂
Witnessing the endless provarication, morally bankrupt and meaningless spin. Makes me incandescent with anger at the sheer contempt this political party heaps upon anyone who they consider beneath them.
there needs ' be a prison sentence. coz while there paid t screw up nothing will change
Who knows if they do their job right? Do they have scheduled inspections from the government or other independent bodies regularly.? I very much doubt it because their services are not good enough to appease the public.😏
No their not 🚫🚫🚫
No.
ha4a held t accout? what a really big bank account?
selling kids m8
boycott