Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

If we utilize the canal systems we could divert water from these to a new reservoir!

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Some of it is. But apparently we are 147% overstocked for water :erm:

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Ah well that's Wales for you..Normally after our Easter visit the rain follows us home.It didn't last Easter.In fact it was the best Easter we have ever had weather wise.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Welsh water.... sheep wee in it ;)

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

i listened to this on the Jeremy vine show -and my thoughts about the welsh guests where what a charming bunch they are. they sounded like the neighbours from hell ,they where more interested in making a profit than helping their neighbours :(

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

The guy was a Plaid Cymru MP so it's his job to put Wales' interests first. I agree he didn't across very well but his point was valid in that England isn't usually intetested in the other home nations unless they want something. It seems the English felt they have an automatic right to the water when it is processed by Welsh Water, a company which does not serve England. At the very least WW should have its expenses covered.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Wasn't it down to their accent? they usually sound like they're aggressive when they speak. same with the Irish, they sound like they're in a mood. and the Scousers sound like they're just whining.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Obviously water that has already been processed at someone else's expense should be paid for, but I'm not sure that was the idea. There would be little point pumping purified water over great distances. You would pump 'raw' water between reservoirs and purify it before putting it into the distribution network in the town where it is to be consumed.

I don't buy the idea that England only thinks of the home nations whenever it 'wants something'. I listened to the Vine show as well and I heard the Plaido (Elfyn Llwyd, was it? I was under the kitchen floor so didn't catch all of it) offering up the same small-minded parochial guff we get on our own local telly and radio from the SNP. We are a United Kingdom. We distribute our resources when and where required. Wales is a net beneficiary of taxes collected in the UK, and the south east of England is a net contributor. Nobody has yet suggested that Wales should get less because it contributes less. It is part of the UK. It deserves the same as everyone else. And if parts of this island have more water than is needed, the people who happen to live where the water is have absolutely no right whatsoever to demand payment for that resource, except as would be part of the usual planning and development process.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Can you imagine the fuss which would ensue if £billions were spent on a water grid and then it started raining again and we discovered we didn't actually need it after all? IMHO it's largely due to the fickle nature of the pubic who demand infrastructure when it snows, rains or doesn't rain but don't want to pay for it through their taxes or prices. It was only a few years ago that we were being flooded left right and centre and people were demanding vast sums of money be spent on flood defences. The truth is these projects take many years and our climate seems to be increasingly unstable so it's going to take a brave man/woman to tell us all we're going to have to pay more in tax or whatever in order to pay for a grand scheme which may turn out to be unnecessary for the foreseeable future..

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Amusing from someone from Brum... :D

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Excellent post. :tu:

Some people have a very selective memory when it comes to issues such as these. "The English are only interested when it suits them.. blah, blah, blah..." nonsense. All the rain in Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland wouldn't repay the English taxpayer for their contribution to bailing out Salmond's arc of prosperity. That's what the UK should be about, not petty cross border point scoring.

---------- Post added at 20:00 ---------- Previous post was at 19:55 ----------

How did you deduce that? Does he type with an accent? :D

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Having been born in 1960 i can well remember the drought in 1976 and since water is a very basic fact of human life ie without it we could not exist convincing people of the benefits of a national water grid i would have thought to be much easier then convincing people of a national power grid.

The climate has been very erratic as you have eluded to, some parts of the country have been flooded and some have not enough water a national water grid whilst not solving all the problems would go some way to addressing some in my view.

But i agree with you on the fickle nature of public opinion.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

Me too. We used to play footy outside in the cul-de-sac and it was so hot the tarmac/asphalt pavement and road surfaces started to melt. We also had a beautiful Virginia creeper which had covered the front/side of the house for 30 odd years but that died in 1976.

My personal view is that we should plan, build and spend for the future when it comes to water, energy, flood defences etc. but it didn't happen when Brown was spending money like it was going out of fashion and I can't see it happening now the finances are really stretched.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

This is why I didn't say I agreed with England paying for the water. I understand and respect why Llwyd thought we should be paid for it as it's his job to promote our interests. But I certainly think the processing costs etc should be covered by England. If Welsh Water made no profit from the venture then I say that's fair. There certainly is a tangible amount of England only being interested in its own affairs until it wants something from us in this but that would be taking this too OT.

One thing is for sure, a case like Capel Celyn is unlikely to ever happen in reverse.

Re: Drought summit as rivers in England dry up
 

That wouldn't be England paying Wales for something though. It would be the consumers of the water paying whichever company built and operated the reservoir and the pipeline. Llwyd seems mightily un-keen for Welsh Water to have anything to do with such a project, so it would probably be a private company, probably headquartered in England.

The only sense in which England could pay Wales would be if the Assembly were to be able to charge some sort of tax or levy for transferring water across the national border in a way that is not charged for transferring water across a local authority border, say between Monmouth and Newport, or if it were to impose a levy on any non-Welsh company that attempted to develop a reservoir in Wales. Both approaches would be legally dubious in the extreme.