In contrast to posts about films, or even social media, today's blog is all about sewers!
Today I received a somewhat confusing letter from my local water authority, Severn Trent, detailing new legislation which means that the majority of sewerage pipework that used to be under the home-owner's ownership was now being transferred to the water authority. Details here.
And this is all very good for us, they say. I'm sure that most people are aware that they are responsible for the sewer pipes from their house until they hit the main sewer, which is typically at the centre of the road, and usually outside of their property boundaries, along with any communal stretches of pipework. If there's a failure there, it can be expensive to fix ... digging holes and the like.
So, all in all a good thing. Yay for them.
Hmmmm ... what's this? To pay for the extra responsibility of maintenance, all water bills will rise by between £3 and £14 a year? But there are 25m homes ... that's about £250m to water companies. For taking something that's currently ours. Okay, I've had my fair share of drain problems, and I've invested in a set of drain rods to fix those problems. About £20. In 10 years. Not £14/year.
What am I getting for my money? If I have a blocked drain now can I ring my water authority and they will come around and unblock it? That's not clear if it is the case from the details. Is it really this expensive?
And hang on a moment ... Severn Trent ... aren't they the company that kept sending me those 'maintenance contract' letters, saying "pay £100/year for peace of mind. We'll cover any expenditure if your sewers collapse. After all they are your responsibility." But no, not for much longer. And didn't you know that? In fact, the proposal for ownership change was made in 2008 - 3 years ago - how many times have you received these sales letters in that time? How many people have unwittingly taken out this 'insurance' only to find out that the major cost they could encounter is now being removed? Isn't this, at the very least, sharp practice by a company that knew they were going to end up owning those very pipes within the year?
This smacks very much of the 'payment protection schemes' for credit cards, except having paid for protection you find that it wasn't needed at all. In fact, it's exactly like that isn't it?
