While many residents who went without water for weeks await compensation, Thames Water officials will once again stand up to be counted.
Will it be a case of more jaw, jaw, or will TW start paying the genuine compensation claims that its customers deserve?
The leaguered water authority, up to its neck in debt, will appear before the public at a meeting hosted by MPs Angela Richardson and Jeremy Hunt. Both hope to keep their seats in our area at the next election.
So, this Friday, April 12th, Chief Executive Officer Chris Weston will attend a public meeting with senior representatives of Ofwat and the Consumer Council for Water.
At this meeting, participants will discuss progress on water resilience in our area and follow up on compensation and communication issues following last November’s major outage.
The meeting will be held on Friday, April 12th, from 17:00 to 18:15 at the Wilfred Noyce Centre in Godalming.
Event “Sold Out” for those who try and book now.
Would I be a cynic to suspect Godalming and Ash Conservatives got first dibs on securing tickets? Jeremy certainly wouldn’t want a hostile audience.
I wonder how many Thames Water customers from the affected areas have managed to get tickets?
MPs are told about water and sewage problems and Jeremy Hunt has done a good job in questioning TW execs. A shouting and loud complaints gathering does not achieve getting information or action. I won’t attend but look forward to hearing the reports about the meeting.
We hve received this response JH Response to JWS re roads(2), WW 9.4.24
I’m sorry but I find your advice confusing, John. However I make no apology for standing up for the laws which dictate the processes and constraints that protect our borough.
The people who lightly dismiss the defiance of that protection are depriving us of the infrastructure and mitigation necessary to avoid harm from the cumulative effects of development. Our towns and villages are paying the price. Please don’t support the care-less people causing the harm !
Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood your position, but it seems that you’re saying you’re not opposed to honesty and transparency, whilst supporting the Councils’ wrongdoing. You also claim to have been ‘inspired’ by me (and some unnamed others), yet I’ve never seen any comments from you supporting my position – indeed quite the opposite. Even your kind ‘praise’ here starts with a vague accusation of hypocrisy. Can you be specific about that please – and kindly enlighten me as to my hidden agenda?. My scrutiny of SCC’s misdeeds goes back to 2001, and was inspired by many years of Farnham Society efforts. Perhaps we can meet to discuss it?
Apparently the consistent and admirable position of numerous residents opposing more than 20 years of Crest/WBC/SCC deceptions is no longer an inspiration to you ; it’s now a ‘vendetta’ and an ‘obsession’ which you oppose.
Are you really advising that we should all now support the continued deceptions and lawbreaking of the Councils in respect of the SCC/Crest East Street and town centre highways proposals (and elsewhere)? That “making the best of it” depends upon continued deception and lawbreaking? That all residents and Councillors should now willingly ditch their principles to support the “ill-conceived” plans, in order to allow new ill-advised leadership to sacrifice even more of our town and its businesses to the moral swamp upon which Brightwells is built?
For many years the people of Farnham put up with Conservative councillors telling us that there were only half a dozen objectors to the East Street scheme. You seem to retain that misconception, despite having been one of the six thousand objectors. I’ve seen a few of your comments on this site which seem to display a good knowledge of council procedures and wise words, which are appreciated, but I admit that I have some difficulty finding consistency, other than the odd criticism of Cllr Cockburn and I.
In response to your questions, I’m sure you recall that when we first came out of Covid lockdown, Farnham businesses had to intervene to force ill-advised councillors to remove the single-lane restriction in The Borough, as Surrey Highways’ impositions were dangerous for pedestrians and causing gridlock, harming businesses’ recovery. You surely appreciate that I can’t list all the businesses concerned here (without their prior consent, which I have not sought) ; but please don’t deny their concerns and demean them. A number of them have objected publicly on the planning website.
To my knowledge, only 285 residents supported Surrey’s proposals in SCC’s huge public consultation of the FIP proposals, and that was without knowledge of the likely consequences. I first exposed SCC’s fiddling of consultation results back in 2001. People know that Councils’ consultations are a waste of time, as they’ve already decided what they’ll do.
In respect of the FIP ‘Farnham Board’ Members, the public webcast recording of the June 2023 Board meeting shows Cllr Catherine Powell’s concerns regarding the “unrealistic” claims of SCC, and our longheld concerns for Upper Hale and Hale suffering the displaced traffic from the FIP town-centre proposals. The position of Cllr Tony Fairclough was also made quite clear in a Herald article last summer. When I spoke to them both before the start of the last Board meeting at the end of March, regarding the need to force SCC to demonstrate their traffic modelling, their response was ‘good luck with that’. They seemed frustrated. Other past and present Board members also voiced concerns about the impacts and the effects on businesses, including Cllr Michaela Martin and if I recall correctly, Cllr Ward and Cllr Clark.
I don’t know precisely where each of them stand now, but they all committed to Farnham Residents’ Constitution, and I agree with them when they say that we need Councillors to stand up strong to Surrey. Obviously I also support their efforts to get funding for traffic solutions, with Surrey’s initial ‘promise’ of £250 million having melted away, but it must be done properly, with transparency and integrity … and without inconsistency.
I hope this answers your questions. I won’t pretend to understand your own agenda, and can only hope you’ll clarify that for us with answers to the two big local questions. We really do need all residents (and Councillors!) to let us know where they stand on this :
1. Do you agree that we should force Surrey to ‘come clean’ and provide public demonstration(s) of their fantastic Paramics traffic modelling, upon which their East Street position relies, or should we allow the ‘ill-conceived’ plans to proceed without due scrutiny, to enable the resulting deceptions and ‘catastrophes’ to continue?
2. Do you agree that if we allow SCC to remove roadspace to deliberately congest the town before they provide the ‘promised’ Hickley’s/A31 bypass solution, then we are unlikely to ever get that solution (because the town centre roads provide the only alternative route during lengthy bypass works)?
from Cllr Hyman on our e-mail.
From the Economist 6th July 2023
“The Industry Regulator deserves much of the blame.”
“Thames Water has vast debts, partly the legacy of a leveraged buy-out backed by Macquarie, a bank, in 2006. It has since been sold to new owners, mostly pension funds.” This begs the question why did the Government allow a high risk leveraged buyout of a monopoly?
“Climate change and population growth are putting pressure on the water supply. Britain has not built a new reservoir since the early 1990s and relies on temporary measures, such as hosepipe bans, to limit demand. Britons use more water than their peers, such as the Dutch.” This is why Local Plan Part 1 climate change conditions on water consumption is critical yet ignored by the Local Planning Authority et alia. We now have a disaster that has been years in the making.
https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/07/06/how-to-understand-the-woeful-state-of-britains-water-utilities
regularly A very useful article and your comments hit the mark. Why oh! why haven’t we built more reservoirs. Over in West Sudsex where Southern Water impose hosepipe bans, there has been flooding for months.
From the Economist 6th July 2023
“The Industry Regulator deserves much of the blame.”
“Thames Water has vast debts, partly the legacy of a leveraged buy-out backed by Macquarie, a bank, in 2006. It has since been sold to new owners, mostly pension funds.” This begs the question why did the Government allow a high risk leveraged buyout of a public monopoly?
“Climate change and population growth are putting pressure on the water supply. Britain has not built a new reservoir since the early 1990s and relies on temporary measures, such as hosepipe bans, to limit demand. Britons use more water than their peers, such as the Dutch.” This is why Local Plan Part 1 climate change conditions on water consumption is climate critical yet ignored by the Local Planning Authority et alia. We now have a disaster that has been years in the making.
https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/07/06/how-to-understand-the-woeful-state-of-britains-water-utilities