Just Recieved This {Your Thoughts }

[Red Lead Ted]

We really need your help
United Utilities



Wed 17 Jun at 15:00




Life, as we know it, has changed so much since the Covid-19 outbreak and with many more of us at home we have seen a big increase in the demand for water across the North West.

Thankfully we’ve enjoyed some wonderful weather recently which is a good thing during these difficult times. Last month was the driest May on record in England and the sunniest start to the Spring since records began in 1929. To meet the extra demand we have put an additional 7 billion litres of water into the network of pipes to ensure taps keep flowing.

The increase in water use due to Covid-19, combined with exceptionally dry weather, has resulted in our reservoirs being much lower than we would like them to be at this time of year.

The rain over the last few days, which has been sudden and resulted in flash flooding in some parts, has not been enough to make much of a difference, as we’re still using water quicker than the reservoirs can fill up.

The longer-term outlook suggests average rainfall with warmer temperatures and with many more of us likely to stay at home for holidays this year, we’re now asking for your help to save water where you can so we have enough to see us through the summer.

Some really simple things can make a huge difference in how much water can be saved:

Turning off the tap every time you brush your teeth saves around six litres a minute.
Spend just a minute less in the shower or have a shower instead of a bath, which can also save up to 50 litres every time.
Avoid using sprinklers and hosepipes which can save an incredible 1,000 litres an hour!
Only use the dishwasher when its full – we are all at home creating more dishes so turning the dishwasher on only when its full can make a huge difference.
Please help us now.

The floods we have had in this Country over the past few months could have sunk the U.K.
i HAVE A THEORY...…….. Dig a bloody big reservoir in the middle of the Black country {Midlands } And let it take all the flood water and store it all millions of gallons of the stuff we get flooded out with every year.
The earth we remove to create the bloody big hole back up are river banks and sea defences.
Does that not make sense…………….. Or am i bloody daft. Terry

[Ivan Cloherty]

Lets face it we oldies are already making massive contributions :-

We don't brush our teeth and leave the water running, we soak them overnight

We spend less time in the shower because our vital parts are mostly unused, so don't so much cleaning

The only sprinkler we use is attached to our bodies

The reservoir sounds like a good idea and we could line it with all the torn down statues, however it could not be sited in the Black Country as that would be considered racialist!

[Tony Taylor]

In the late 70s early 80s, the local water board calculated that the demand for water, by industry, on Teesside would rise so much that the river Tees could not provide sufficient water all year round.
A plan was executed, whereby a huge reservoir (biggest man made lake in Europe) was constructed in North Northumberland, namely Kielder Dam. The levels in the River Tees were monitored and when they fell to a predetermined level water was released from the dam into the North Tyne river, this flowed down to Riding Mill some 20 miles or so downstream and 24 hours after release it would be pumped by 8 huge pumps (again, biggest in Europe at the time) from the Tyne to the Tees to raise the level in the Tees.
We locals had to contribute to this by way of increased water rates but at least it secured the future of water supply locally.
It was not in public hands for long before it was sold off to private owners (EDF), no idea what happened to the money from the sale.
So the argument for private ownership was that private company would be able to invest in development, conveniently forgetting about the public money already invested.
So here we are, the water is owned by Chinese now, water rates are quite hefty and profits for Chinese owners, but because Teesside industry declined instead of growing as predicted, we now have huge reserves sitting up there, but we cant export it to other areas because it might contaminate the local area exported to, with non resident flora and fauna.
So how is that for a conundrum? add in Thatchers policy for killing off key industries around the same time and it just adds more questions.

[vic mcclymont]

Blame climate change, everyone else does.
Seriously, we build more and more houses, house need water, do we build any more reservoirs-NO.
Same with street flooding, we build more and more roads, connect new roads drains to the old drains which cannot cope-result- Floods.

Vic

[j.sabourn]

#2... I feel sorry for anyone with the surname of White or Black. When signing their name for their next HP agreement , they can expect the third degree from some zealous salesman , will be aggravated further if they choose a black or white car , so will probably finish up with a pink one . As said in a post a long time ago I knew a bloke in 1957 with the surname of Cock and when registering for a Radar course the girl asked him for his name and he was that embarrassed he said Cox. Don’t know how long he got away with it. Unfortuanetley he was 3 mate on a ship and the 2 Mate was called Balls. Nearly as bad as having two mates called Black and White. Cheers JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Ted.
Could be worse, we had two months of fires and breathing thick smoke, didn't do the lungs any good. Then we had the virus three months in lock down. In the meantime the last rain we had was the day they declared the fires defeated, and that was only one day of heavy rain, the only rain for the last six months. Not bad realy as before that we had three years of drought.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

We have it all here in Oz drought and floods.
Said to be the driest country on earth, not true, but we get some very heavy rains which cause floods, usually after a big drought.
We are just coming out of a five year one and have had some record rainfall this year.
But with al the rain we do very little to harvest it, rivers flood and out to sea it goes.

Here in Victoria we had the chance to build a big dam which on a river would have stopped some of the floods in Gippsland, but no the Labor gov at the time declared the area a national park so no dam.
Instead he built a desal plant which has never worked correctly and costs a fortune to run.

[John Pruden]

inter connect all reservoirs in the country and have run offs into the sea dredge rivers regular if a river rises 10ft then dig 10ft deeper bit no we would sooner let people pay insurance through the nose and make flooding someone elses problem land management is the answer.. jp

[Chris Allman]

We have a couple of very small rivers / streams, the Birket, Fender and Arrowe Brook near us which used to overflow regularly and flood the estates and parks during and after heavy rain. In the end whoever was in charge of that type of thing decided to dredge and deepen them considerably. Job jobbed, they keep them dredged and none of them have overflowed since. Just shows what you can do if you try.

[Ronnie Grant]

Ted #1.Here's a trick I picked up in OZ. At shower time turn the handle to hot only and collect the water in a bucket in the cubicle. Once it starts to run hot then adjust to what heat you want. Depending on where your H/W tank is you may well get about four litres of cold water before the hot comes through and that's per person. Enough for the planters or a toilet flush. Cheers.