Taxi Driver Online

The Scottish Government is willing to discuss how Scotland’s plentiful water resources may help the continuing pressure on water supplies in South East England.

Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, has written to the UK Government to offer Scottish assistance following a recent Drought Summit staged in England.

Mr Neil said:

“The South of England is facing real issues with water supply, which look set to continue well into the future.

“With Scotland’s plentiful supply of water and superb industry expertise it is only right we offer our assistance in the long term.

“There are undoubtedly huge logistical issues to overcome, but as I saw personally this week while opening Scottish Water’s new £130 million Glencorse Water Treatment works, we have world leading capabilities here in Scotland.

“I note the Mayor of London has raised the issue as something that needs to be seriously considered, and while we are clearly at the start of the long process, we are willing to discuss the practicalities.

“For example, High Speed Rail may provide opportunities for joint working on the necessary infrastructure.

“Our Hydro Nation agenda is ambitious and offers huge opportunities in this area. That means helping out others where possible too, and I am willing to make that happen, if the UK Government is too.”


http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Release ... on09032012

Then charge them through the nose for it, plus VAT

Like the ecological problems with excessive transport use, the inadequate water supply in areas of England is entirely the fault of government planning.

It's not difficult to see that the areas affected are incapable of supporting the population living there. Yet planners exacerbate the problem by allowing more housebuilding despite knowing this. The problem is being planned into the system.

My brother lives adjacent to Stanstead airport. The local residents are fighting a development that would add 20,000 dwellings over the fence at the foot of his garden, ostensibly because of airport expansion that no one really wants, apart from government of course.

Our politicians and planners have never got beyond osmotic policies, where developments are drawn from weaker areas to more concentrated areas of enterprise. This is how London has grown exponentially, where in North London a typical town house can cost just under £1 million, well outwith the reach of a typical family.

Common sense surely dictates that enterprise should be spread out into the regions, where water supply problems don't exist. After all, with modern communications, there is now less need than ever for organisations trading with each other to be situated in the same locus.

The fault lies with politicians primarily. Since the withdrawal by the Tories of Regional Development Grants in the 80s (another thatcher legacy), the problem has simply been getting ever worse. More concentration in areas unable to sustain the infrastructure being imposed on them, while the rest of the country languishes as unemployment blackspots, unable to attract the industry and commerce although they have ample space and labour resources to meet all their requirements.

Building the pipeline to supply the drought areas, the so-called logistical problem referred to, is simply papering over the cracks. We need politicians to understand the fundamental flaw in the system they've designed for us.

Only then will be all be happier for it, as will a planet struggling to deal with the environmental problems political folly is burdening it with.

I don't understand why London needs any more airports, they could build a massive one in the middle of the UK
then most folk would not need to travel down there to get a flight, ffs I have a regular who has to fly to London to fly to Cannes in the winter months, but in summer time she can get a direct flight from Newcastle

FFS......you people never heard of the lake district?

Kielder?

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Or Yorkshire no shortage here,Jockland can keep theires.

Why don't they just fix their crumbling victorian water supply system, which leaks more water than it delivers.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

Not at the moment their isn't.
What about the future, when your populations have expanded and the climate has warmed up?
Will you still have enough then, and enough to feed the whole of the south of England as well?

Will you be as happy as the Welsh, who supply parts of England and pay more for their water than the places they supply?

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

You're right about this.
They can't just keep building more and more when the land can't sustain it.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

I got lots of water.....the south is over-populated......its a little like having too many taxis and not enough customers.....eventually the taxi drivers start to be affected by the oversupply.

Any farmer will tell you about the dangers of over grazing land.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Fraid I can't agree CC.

It's market forces, and if they were allowed to operate without being fettered by vested interests, as with the taxi trade, then the lack of supply in the south east would put a brake on further development.

The problem is government seeking to ignore excessive demand and increase supply artificially.

If free market mechansims were allowed to influence the south east, then it would manifest itself by there being no water when the taps are turned on. People would have to vote with their thirst and relocate to areas of plenty.

By seeking to move water to the population, rather than the population to water, government is attempting to move the mountain to mahommet - a much more difficult prospect to achieve.

As I said, this is a political problem and a government failure. The establishment is wedded to the notion of packing everything into a small area. There are vast tracts of land elsewhere in the UK that could easily support increased population and commercial enterprise, and which would afford those living there a much higher quality of life.

It's not rocket science. It just politicians who make it seem so.

There's only one way we are going to sort this and that's by de-salination of sea water. Like Jasbar said in an earlier post they can't keep building houses and not effect the water table.

We are OK round here there's a massive underground lake that stretches for miles and is near full at the moment.

Is that what they told you, its a swimming pool

We could fit long range water canons to an enlarged hadrians Wall, now that would be fun Splat ya bastages Splat

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Alway's been about Tightening the Grip!

Is that what has happened to all the closed pits.

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Grandad,