UK Strategic Planning

[Chindie]

17 minutes ago, Milfner said:

Sounds good to me. 

Way too much of the city centre is accessible to private cars where it shouldn't be. Lines of cars parked up down just makes the city look incredibly unpresentable. 

It's a great idea if you've got a really good public transport system.

We don't.

[Stevo985]

On 28/04/2023 at 10:14, Chindie said:

It's a great idea if you've got a really good public transport system.

We don't.

This.

Give us the public transport system to go with it and it's great. 
Currently I live a 5 minute walk from a station so getting into Brum is fine.

I'm moving a 10 minute drive away and suddenly I'm at least a 2 bus journey (or bus and then a train) away from Birmingham. Unless I walk an hour and 20 minutes to the nearest station and then get the train.

[Chindie]

I'm similar.

When I first started working in town, I had to get a bus. If I got the 'fast' service, I was getting on the bus at 7.30 (if it turned up), and praying the traffic was 'good' so I could get into the city centre at 8.20 or so. If I got the slow service, I'd be sprinting to get to my desk for 9 more often than not. 

I then started driving into the office and I was getting in just before 8, if the traffic was good. But it was costing me a fiver a day to park. And then they got rid of the carpark I used.

Then I started driving 15 minutes to a train station, going even earlier to make sure I could park, and then taking 20 minutes on the train to get into town, and paying for a train pass. If I was using the bus I'd have to leave even earlier because the bus service to get to the train station is rubbish. And that isn't accounting for the times that the train service was **** and basically meant sitting in New Street for 3 hours while they checked for overhead line problems or rail problems or weather issues...

Our public transport in Birmingham isn't good enough. Unless you live within walking distance of a train station, which is unlikely, especially when there's whole areas of the city that simply do not have a train station at all, you're ****.

And as someone who has trouble travelling in the best of conditions, it's torture.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

This is the same theory that suggests hitting water companies with fines that change behaviour will somehow slow down their roll out programme to stop pumping shit directly in to rivers.

It isn’t. That’s not “the cause”. There’s 2 parts to that particular problem. Or maybe 3.  Firstly the tories slashed the environment agency budget, which means that instead of “the state” monitoring water quality and pollution, it either goes complete unchecked, or the suppliers self monitor. The second is [tories] “ok, we know there’s tons of pollution and we know people are cross about it, so we need to set targets and timing to end the polluting…but if we do that, the costs, which are huge, will fall on the consumers… so let’s not, y’know, be too hasty…”

Essentially it’s lack of effective regulation, which is absolutely vital. Southern Water, which is one of the major culprits- they’ve paid no dividends since 2016, I think it is. They are spending billions on improvements.

I think my point is, it’s not the threat of fines, or the presence of them that will magically stop a creaking system from struggling to cope with rainfall, leaks, broken infrastructure, insufficient reservoirs, farm run off and all the rest. While I wasn’t in favour of privatisation of water at all, the core problem is not who owns the pipes and reservoirs and treatment plants, or who operates them, it’s ultimately a complete absence of long term coherent national planning. The threat of nationalisation actually makes the problem worse, because “why would I, as CEO of X water company commit n billion quid to upgrades and improvements if in a year’s time the government is simply going to nationalise us? - I’d be better off  keeping the spending down this year, make profit as a result and get a nice bonus and see the share price rise”.

[blandy]

53 minutes ago, tinker said:

The industry needs regulation to punish  the pumping of untreated waste into our rivers and seas.

The reason the companies are not doing it is financial,  they don't want to pay for the holding facilities, chemicals and processing equipment that it would require, they would rather please the share holders than save our wildlife and bathers.

Waste water,  even effluent (biological) is easily recycled back into drinking water. It's not even an expensive process but because we have vast natural water recourses we can just pump this into the fresh water system and discard the effluent for the natural world to sort out, its an absolute national disgrace.

Only a government who is completely incompetent would ban production of combustion engines being used from 2030 and yet ignore the environmental disaster the water companies are being allowed to get away with for the sake of money. 

Sure, at least partly, but there’s more I think. It’s not just regulation to punish discharges, but also to require they are stopped (via upgrades).

Further, we don’t have “vast natural water resources”. Sure there are too many leaks, but there is a lack of reservoir capacity, meaning too much water extracted from rivers and streams and further harm resulting from that. Climate change is making that worse and investment is needed now. Nationalising Water won’t change that, it’ll just add to the public bill, on top of the legislative time to do it and the movement of funds into the shareholders pockets to buy them out, while also simultaneously discouraging external investment in the uk, because of the risk that whatever is invested in is also nationalised. The current balance of unregulated, or laxly regulated, privatised companies is completely out of kilter and needs sorting, but it’s not the case, in my view that the only solution to that, or the best one, is always renationalising stuff. “If only the state ran the water industry all the problems would go away” is a pipe dream. They won’t. They’d still need fixing. The (any) government can and should properly regulate, set legally binding standards and targets and requirements and monitor compliance and deal with failures to meet those requirements, regardless of whether an industry is run by civil servants or by private companies.

Tory ideology of light touch regulation, small state, climate change is a myth, hurrah for the capitalist profits is the root cause of all this, though successive governments have been too short term in outlook for decades.

[desensitized43]

1 hour ago, tinker said:

The industry needs regulation to punish  the pumping of untreated waste into our rivers and seas.

The reason the companies are not doing it is financial,  they don't want to pay for the holding facilities, chemicals and processing equipment that it would require, they would rather please the share holders than save our wildlife and bathers.

Waste water,  even effluent (biological) is easily recycled back into drinking water. It's not even an expensive process but because we have vast natural water recourses we can just pump this into the fresh water system and discard the effluent for the natural world to sort out, its an absolute national disgrace.

Only a government who is completely incompetent would ban production of combustion engines being used from 2030 and yet ignore the environmental disaster the water companies are being allowed to get away with for the sake of money. 

 

I'm afraid under the law as it currently stands they only have legal responsibilities to their shareholders to maximise their value. All other concerns are secondary.

Welcome to runaway capitalism.

[tinker]

58 minutes ago, blandy said:

Sure, at least partly, but there’s more I think. It’s not just regulation to punish discharges, but also to require they are stopped (via upgrades).

Further, we don’t have “vast natural water resources”. Sure there are too many leaks, but there is a lack of reservoir capacity, meaning too much water extracted from rivers and streams and further harm resulting from that. Climate change is making that worse and investment is needed now. Nationalising Water won’t change that, it’ll just add to the public bill, on top of the legislative time to do it and the movement of funds into the shareholders pockets to buy them out, while also simultaneously discouraging external investment in the uk, because of the risk that whatever is invested in is also nationalised. The current balance of unregulated, or laxly regulated, privatised companies is completely out of kilter and needs sorting, but it’s not the case, in my view that the only solution to that, or the best one, is always renationalising stuff. “If only the state ran the water industry all the problems would go away” is a pipe dream. They won’t. They’d still need fixing. The (any) government can and should properly regulate, set legally binding standards and targets and requirements and monitor compliance and deal with failures to meet those requirements, regardless of whether an industry is run by civil servants or by private companies.

Tory ideology of light touch regulation, small state, climate change is a myth, hurrah for the capitalist profits is the root cause of all this, though successive governments have been too short term in outlook for decades.

We more or less agree, I don't think nationalising it would be the right answer now, just make sure we have legal protection against the discharges and make sure they cost the share holders dividends, they will then pressure the management of the company to sort the mess out. 

As for the natural resources,  we have more than enough rain combine that with recycling and we are truly blessed , we need storage facilities. 

[chrisp65]

According to OFWAT, 20% of the water supply in the UK is lost to leaks. The equivalent of 51 litres per person per day for every person, every day.

 

Let’s fix some **** leaks before we flood out any more valley communities, eh lads.

 

 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

According to OFWAT, 20% of the water supply in the UK is lost to leaks. The equivalent of 51 litres per person per day for every person, every day.

Let’s fix some **** leaks before we flood out any more valley communities, eh lads.

Let's do both. I don't mean flood people out of their communities, but build more reservoirs (which could also help with hydro electricity generation, in some places). Climate change is turning the weather drier, and the increasing population demands more water, and the South East in particular is drier and more populous than the infrastructure currently supports.

The infrastructure was built by the Victorians and there are a lot more people now, with almost no new reservoirs for decades and decades. They need interconnecting too - so that more water can be moved from wet places to dry ones.

I guess no governments have wanted to do it, because people complain like mad at anything being built near them.

[bickster]

10 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

According to OFWAT, 20% of the water supply in the UK is lost to leaks. The equivalent of 51 litres per person per day for every person, every day.

Let’s fix some **** leaks before we flood out any more valley communities, eh lads.

I was curious. by my reckoning and rough workings, 51 liters per person represents approximately 1/7th of the capacity of Kielder Water, thats capacity not throughput

[blandy]

Just now, bickster said:

I was curious. by my reckoning and rough workings, 51 liters per person represents approximately 1/7th of the capacity of Kielder Water, thats capacity not throughput

Cripes. So leaks empty (the equivalent of) Kielder water every week, or 52 times a year.

[chrisp65]

Just now, bickster said:

I was curious. by my reckoning and rough workings, 51 liters per person represents approximately 1/7th of the capacity of Kielder Water, thats capacity not throughput

I would have no idea tbh.

But if that’s correct, then to extrapolate the obvious from that, we lose the entire capacity of Kielder every week through leaks, and the solution touted by many, is build more reservoirs. That doesn’t feel like they are spotting what the problem is.

Perhaps the South East just needs to invest in reverse osmosis facilities along the Kent coast, that could even negate some of the rising sea level problems. 

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Cripes. So leaks empty (the equivalent of) Kielder water every week, or 52 times a year.

My bath leaks, I need a bigger bath.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

My bath leaks, I need a bigger bath.

If you can't fit in it to bathe - if it's too small and only fit for when you were younger and smaller, yes, you do.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

If you can't fit in it to bathe - if it's too small and only fit for when you were younger and smaller, yes, you do.

When I was younger there was a hell of a lot of industry sucking up a hell of a lot of water. That industry has gone, but we’re lazy in our habits and see easy solutions and grand solutions. 

Perhaps this should be in the infrastructure thread, but we have a water wastage problem. Not a water capture problem.

If we can’t be arsed to fix pipes, I struggle to see the sense in building another reservoir with another 100 miles of pipe to serve Kent. Cos that’s a lot of pipe that over time is going to leak. But we don’t fix the leaks cos its hard. I guess what we could do, when it eventually comes time for maintenance, is just build another reservoir and a slightly longer pipe. 

We under value natural resource and we waste it. Times about up on that model.

 

[bickster]

19 minutes ago, blandy said:

Cripes. So leaks empty (the equivalent of) Kielder water every week, or 52 times a year.

Yep that's about it. Kielder has a 200 billion litre capacity

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

When I was younger there was a hell of a lot of industry sucking up a hell of a lot of water. That industry has gone, but we’re lazy in our habits and see easy solutions and grand solutions. 

Perhaps this should be in the infrastructure thread, but we have a water wastage problem. Not a water capture problem.

If we can’t be arsed to fix pipes, I struggle to see the sense in building another reservoir with another 100 miles of pipe to serve Kent. Cos that’s a lot of pipe that over time is going to leak. But we don’t fix the leaks cos its hard. I guess what we could do, when it eventually comes time for maintenance, is just build another reservoir and a slightly longer pipe. 

We under value natural resource and we waste it. Times about up on that model.

 

Well, there's something in that, for sure. The thing is though the Tories (and previous governments) are reluctant in the extreme to be strategic in their thinking and actions regarding the nation's infrastructure. Privatisation has made that worse, too.

The demand for water from industry is high - and replacement of solvents with water based stuff is part of the reason, but there are many others. From farming it's high, from the larger population it's higher. Climate change is making the situation worse. Even if every leak was immediately fixed, which will never happen, there's still a need to set the UK on the path where we have 'nuff water in 20, 30 years time. The government and civil service agencies need to plan to make sure there's the right infrastructure in the right condition to keep the taps running, and to make sure we stop polluting and stop extracting from rivers and streams and ruining the environment and wildlife as a consequence. I'm no expert on all this, but what I've read, watched and listened to all seems to say that greater capacity is necessary. I can't see the tories, especially coming up to an election, doing anything about it.

[limpid]

19 hours ago, blandy said:

Well, there's something in that, for sure. The thing is though the Tories (and previous governments) are reluctant in the extreme to be strategic in their thinking and actions regarding the nation's infrastructure. Privatisation has made that worse, too.

The demand for water from industry is high - and replacement of solvents with water based stuff is part of the reason, but there are many others. From farming it's high, from the larger population it's higher. Climate change is making the situation worse. Even if every leak was immediately fixed, which will never happen, there's still a need to set the UK on the path where we have 'nuff water in 20, 30 years time. The government and civil service agencies need to plan to make sure there's the right infrastructure in the right condition to keep the taps running, and to make sure we stop polluting and stop extracting from rivers and streams and ruining the environment and wildlife as a consequence. I'm no expert on all this, but what I've read, watched and listened to all seems to say that greater capacity is necessary. I can't see the tories, especially coming up to an election, doing anything about it.

In 20, 30 years time, the refugees from the flooded coastal parts of the UK will need somewhere to live. So we will need new reservoirs and also lots of construction, but built without concrete because of the shortage of steel, sand and the CO2 released by the process.

[Chindie]

Last night, struggling for something to watch, I watched Guy Martin's latest (I think) series, this time looking at the energy crisis/the National Grid.

Very interesting.

The takeaway though probably wasn't the resounding optimism you'd hope for. Electricity supply is really complicated, really expensive, and every single option for meeting demand is in some way rubbish. Traditional gas power stations? Expensive. 'Biomass' power stations? Huge infrastructure and still releases loads of CO2 (even if it's not as 'bad' CO2 as coal). Wind? Reliant on weather and we don't have an efficient way of storing what it produces yet so it's wasteful, and requires extremely large areas to produce serious capacity levels. Solar? Same storage issues, same size issues, fairly expensive upfront costs. Tidal? Expensive, storage issues, not yet mass proven (but that may change). Nuclear? Ludicrously expensive set up costs and long lead times meaning it's not really viable to have mass build up, and has the problem of radiation and waste. Fusion? Pipe dream currently.

Even setting that aside the infrastructure for the grid has it's own issues. I didn't realise that there's only 100 guys in the country who can maintain and repair the power lines. Or that we have helicopter teams that do inspections of the infrastructure constantly. Or that the entire grid is administered to from a single (secret) place with a couple of guys authorised to buy capacity as demand requires. Or that we need a lot more power lines.

And so on.

The takeaway was pretty much, we need to use less electricity, or be prepared to pay for it.

[cheltenham_villa]

Would we expect a labour government to re-open previously closed lines in a nationalised rail service? I'd be shocked, particularly when you need to pay for under investment in infrastructure and you are already up against it on an underfunded nhs. I just dont understand why someone would want to nationalise more services, you are giving people more sticks to beat you with.