Brexit just keeps on giving

[Leftinlimbo]

This is not progress - now the government is going to relax the laws allowing housing to be built near our waterways without any concern for the environment:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66642878

Unlike most of you folks, I am an expert.

How is that Brexit going?

You were warned by people like myself thousands of times you would be poorer.

And voila. You are poorer.

If you refuse to aknowledge reality now due to "reasons" you are just going to end up even poorer.

No skin off my back. I have already been proven right 10x over.

So imagine that you're the local sewage provider. There's an excess of rainfall, resulting in more runoff entering your systems than usual (because in many places the storm drains and building downpipes just feed into the sewers, they're not separated like in newer installations). Sewage starts to back up. If you let it continue, it'll blow back and erupt out of the sewers, possibly into people's houses. All you can do to prevent this is open the relief valve to let some of it out. Not ideal, but is it any worse than having it jump out of people's plugholes?

You say that there's EU rules against this. What exactly do you think that they can do? They probably just impose a fine. That doesn't stop the dump in the first place.

Thanks, your contributions are comedy gold.

This is only doable for a small proportion of the excess office buildings due to their design and structure.

Agree that it should be done for the office buildings were this is possible (convert from commercial to residential).

All the EU did was give you an extra two weeks.

Yes, I am amused by the people like yourself who lack education an experience.

You just can't help but repeatedly punch yourself in the face with your poor decision-making.

Meanwhile, the people with money in the UK laugh at you (because they profit from your misery).

Great stuff kid. Keep up the good work!

I wasn't sure on the pensioner thread but afraid you just jumped the shark now. No one is this OTT are you concerned you aren't getting enough attention on Tattle?

Loving your guaranteed sneering. Not sure how you think I am continually punching myself in the face but I daren't challenge you because you are obviously so superior, you must know everything about my life.

The problems of lack of investment in the sewage system go back before Brexit.

A material deterioration of the entire water infrastructure started in 2011 when the Tories go voted in.

They gutted the environmental regulator responsible for checking the pollutions levels around beaches and rivers. And they also allowed the water companies to "self-regulate" in terms of keeping track of the sewage discharges.

Thats when things got much, much worse as water companies under-reported the discharges and the regulatory body stopped checking the pollution levels.

So this is a Tory-caused problem with Brexit simply accelerating the problem they caused.

Being in the EU would have slowed down the discharges because there would have been harsher consequences for lying about the discharges.

There is now a huge legal case against Severn Trent because they were allowed to charge consumers more (because they declared fewer discharges) even though there is evidence now they consistently lied about the amount and size of those discharges.

... x100

Where do you suggest the extra 300,000 residents will live when their homes are flooded?

As a sewage / waste water treatment provider you should have been investing in your company's infrastructure and ensuring that it is able to handle any population increase in your service area and a 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 year rainfall event without discharging raw sewage into rivers.

That companies have not been doing this is a failure of governance (at all levels). Fines are also only an effective deterrent if the companies who are subject to them can't simply pass on the cost to their customers (another governance failure).

That stat is a bit misleading, as it was calculated using only the footprint of actual buildings, and not all the associated land use such as gardens, driveways, paths, estate roads etc, and the land take of golf courses was over estimated.

https://www.ft.com/content/79772697-54e4-32c9-96d7-5c1110270eb2

Yes, we had the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive from 1991, which meant that member states were supposed to invest in ensuring that untreated wastewater wasn’t discharged.

The UK didn’t invest in upgrading its wastewater treatment infrastructure, instead it sent billions of pounds into shareholders pockets.

The UK was often taken to the CJEU for ignoring its responsibilities under the directive.

A material deterioration of the entire water infrastructure started in 2011 when the Tories go voted in.

That isn't a figure the government recognise. This government has been in power since October 2022. And needs to be given a few years to clear up the complete Horlicks it's predecessors made of things.

I think a good summary of the current situation.

However forgets to mention that repairs/improvements to the capacity of the sewage system have been chronically underfunded for probably at least the past 40 years through a succession of governments of both Tory and Labour.

Also, that we are probably having to deal with 5-10% more sewage, because importing huge amounts of people via FOM led to ... you guessed it ... a whole load more sewage. With no money being put up to deal with that issue.

And that's the issue I have with FOM, that it makes planning and control of a countries resources to the greater benefit of the people who live there pretty much impossible. Which is pretty much the only point of having a government in the first place. If you are not going to manage resources to the greater benefit of the population you might be better off just getting rid of them (the government that is).

There always seems to be plenty of campaigns for open borders and free movement of people, but strangely fewer for actually dealing with the consequences that has for society. Short term thinking plagues us.

Of course they should, but they haven't and we are where we are. You're not going to sort out the infrastructure overnight.

Seems bonkers to me to build near existing waterways due to flood risk.

If they want to start changing laws to improve housing development, start allowing more derelict buildings to be pulled down and turned into housing. The barmy rules on listed buildings mean they often are left until they fall down completely, as doing any work on them is prohibitvely expensive.

Ahhh the ageist poster is vocal on the winter fuel thread as well

I'm really hoping that the parents of these ageist posters are planning on leaving their money and massive houses that are obviously worth a fortune to the local dogs home.

This may be outing, but I have just been turned down for permission for my son to convert an existing stable building on my property. Complete madness in my view. Developers can build thousands of homes on greenfield sites, but I can't convert an existing that fronts onto my driveway. Planning laws need re-writing but not like this.

Oh and PS, I already have my own sewage treatment plant on site (not on mains drainage) so wouldn't be adding to the problems. The Planning Officer suggested in her letter that my son should ask the council to house him instead!

But is not what is happening, sewage discharge is happening routinely, regardless of rainfall.
The discharge in hours of 3 outflows nr me was 709 hours in June, which was quite a dry month.

Obviously boosts SWW 's profits by not bothering to treat the stuff too.

The problem is the UK Govt vis the regulator, is not forcing the water industry to up grade, well it is but its been given 30 years and we pay for it with higher bills, we ve already paid for this work to have been done.

@Leftinlimbo strangely I've just been watching clarksons farm- series 2- planning is an eye opener!!

Free movement brought in more younger people.

It was the only thing stopping the UK from becoming a Gerontonomia.

I think you will find this journal article enlightening.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13301

@TheThinkingGoblin Thanks I will have a read.