To think this should be front page news?

[worrieddaughter97]

A town in this country is living in third world conditions, with poisoned tap water!

Yet these people take hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonuses every year!

https://news.sky.com/story/brixham-water-disease-outbreak-may-last-a-week-and-infected-could-be-ill-for-up-to-a-month-expert-warns-13136944

This.

You are being hyperbolic and also I'm not clear how you have missed this being all over the news, as I've heard and seen lots of articles about it even though I'm miles away and it isn't affecting me.

The grips are in the third drawer down, on the right. Just behind the glass hammers.

How do you do this? I'm interested.

OP you're not wrong that this is disgraceful. It's another fundamental aspect of infrastructure that isn't working, along with transport and healthcare.

Nobody should have dirty water in the UK.

@worrieddaughter97 you honestly don’t know why other stories might take precedence? Really? Oh dear.

I live in the Southern Water area so not Brixham and we have regular times with no water, brown water or white water. Then it smells strongly of chlorine when they flush the pipes after it has been cut off. Numerous locals have been ill at times. Whole thing has been massively minimised in the news when we had no water for almost three days last year. Many vulnerable “priority” customers who were supposed to have bottled water delivered did not receive it and non vulnerable got their deliveries in error.
Then we had the data breach and half a million customers personal information was hacked and sold to criminals.
Frequent sewage spills into local rivers and the sea.
Privatised water is a shit show coming home to roost as infrastructure which has not had proper investment is wearing out.
I stopped drinking tap water last year boiled or not. It is not safe.

I heard this. Bloody disgusting.

It hasn’t been poisoned but, yes I agree. It’s also a horrific bug I got it as a gut and healthy 30 odd yo and was ill fit weeks and weeks….it leaves you with terrible joint pain afterwards as well. We think I got it from a spa pool - it’s a water transmitted bug.

Stop showing your ignorance.

Developing nation is the term and has been for many years.

Greetings from the majority world (formerly known as the third world...). I get that it is awful, and really really unexpected in a country like the UK, but to give you some perspective, we don't have running water. The pipes are there, but it hasn't functioned in our town for decades, we have to draw water from the ground at our house, and we're some of the lucky ones who can do that on our property. The water we get we have to boil to make safe, there is a Cholera outbreak where we live, and there are large areas with open sewers, and communal wells for washing/ cooking/ drinking water. Our situation won't be fixed anytime in the next several years, and we don't have anyone handing out bottles of water.

You made front page news over here - we really do get that it is not acceptable (anywhere, but especially in the UK where you'd think it would be better). You might want to actually consider those of us living in the majority world though, and think about how long we've been dealing with this and how much more severe it is before you claim third world status!

Got any perspective now op?

Id not heard the term majority world @FoxEaredBat, excuse my ignorance I would have used the term “developing countries” but goodness your post has brought me up short.

YABU because it already is.

id like to see proof of this

I think honestly anything goes :) where we live, nobody would mind at all if the place was referred to as developing world, majority world or even third world (we're all too busy figuring out how to get clean water ;) !), but you're right in that developing is more polite than "third world", which always sounds a bit "lower class" to me. And developing is accurate, and not at all offensive.

I just prefer majority world as a term, because it is true that actually we are the majority that live in these conditions, and maybe using majority will prompt a better understanding of how many people live, outside of the privileged developed/ "first world".

*edit to add, it is just my personal preference though, not a universally acknowledged "better" term!

This is absolute cobblers.

It is not like living in a 3rd world country !

Residents can still bath and shower. They can use their water to water plants in the garden, put a sprinkler on the lawn and wash their cars ! They can use washing machines and dishwashers !

3rd world countries do not have that quantity of water.

The residents of a very small area can boil water to drink - one would usually boil water for tea/coffee etc anyway !

SWW are distributing free bottled water, either directly to vulnerable people at home or at a couple of sites i.e. Broadsands Beach car park

The latest figures are 46 people are ill, and maybe 100 have symptoms, and the population in Brixham is 16,000 approx !

You're not sorry, you're just ignorant.

@OlderGlaswegianLivingInDevon did you receive a bonus from sww?

and yet again, the term is not 3rd world country .........

Turns out that refusing payment is a thing - people are deducting the sewerage charge from their direct debit amount and filing complaints. Sounds interesting :

https://www.boycottwaterbills.com/

As an ex-env regulator, water was sorted years ago - no poo in the sea etc but since MT sold off our utilities, and over the last 10 years or so, Ofwat and the env agency have allowed water plcs to put up sob stories meaning they can poollute everywhere. Its utterly disgusting and unacceptable.

They sob but pay shareholders mega amounts. The Aussue owners of Thames have loaded it with debt taking so much money out of it, I understand its at risk of going under. Our biggest water Co at risk of going under.

Congratulations David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss (though her time as pm was spent focussing on fg up the economy not water) and Rushi Sunak. The government that allowed poollution of our season and rivers.

I maybe off the mark here the rise in pollution in our seas and rivers seems to have risen since Brexit is there any correlation for this and EU law being no longer applicable?.

I like the term ‘developing world’ because it suggests that conditions in these countries are improving over time, rather than regressing as would seem to be happening in the UK from what I read on Mumsnet.

Very true! It is a hopeful term. In reality, things here are currently going backwards (roads deteriorating, water and electricity far less reliable than 20 years ago, schools and hospital facilities far worse off), but you're right in that developing is the direction we should be heading! And many majority world countries are indeed developing, thankfully. I think mine is just a personal experience thing. We are regressing :( solidarity with the UK (!).

Yuck, OP. How crass of you to weigh up a news story from our 'most precious country' against war that involves those little people who don't count as much because they live elsewhere.
I might be jumping to conclusions but I bet I could pretty accurately guess who you vote for and what newspaper your parents read when you grew up.

Not all water companies. Scottish Water are fab. They have water refill stations dotted all over.

Hopefully it gets resolved fast. Everyone deserves decent quality water.