How can England possibly be running out of water?

Privatisation, Profit and Regulation

• Many blame England’s water crisis on 1980s–90s privatisation: firms loaded up on debt, paid out large dividends, underinvested in maintenance and reservoirs, and now seek big bill rises to fix decaying assets.
• Others argue the real driver is political: the regulator kept prices artificially low and demanded investment, forcing companies into debt and making long‑term planning unattractive.
• Counterpoint: nationalised utilities can also be corrupt or inefficient; examples from Scotland, Ireland, LA and the USPS are cited to show state ownership isn’t automatically better.
• Several note a “natural monopoly” like water is structurally ill‑suited to shareholder profit, since every penny of profit comes from higher bills, poorer service, or deferred maintenance.

Leaks, Infrastructure and Planning Constraints

• ~20% of treated water is said to leak from pipes; annual replacement rates are tiny. Commenters see fixing leaks as the obvious near‑term “solution” that private firms lack incentives to pursue.
• Pre‑privatisation, new reservoirs were built regularly; since then almost none. Water companies claim they have proposed reservoirs (e.g. Abingdon) but have been blocked by regulators and local NIMBY campaigns.
• The planning system is widely criticised as slow and veto‑ridden, making any large reservoir or canal project a multi‑decade effort.

Climate Change, Responsibility and Behaviour

• Several point to shifting rainfall patterns: more intense downpours and longer dry spells require much more storage even if annual rainfall rises.
• Debate over responsibility: some stress oil‑producing states and companies that hid research and lobbied against renewables; others insist consumers and voters share blame for high‑carbon lifestyles and voting against “green” policies.
• Individual action vs systemic change is contested; some highlight personal emissions cuts, others argue only state‑level coordination and regulation can matter at scale.

Population, Immigration and Demand

• One camp frames the issue as infrastructure failing to keep pace with ~20–25% population growth, sometimes explicitly tying this to immigration.
• Others counter that this growth is modest by rich‑country standards, that water abstraction has been flat or declining, and that privatisation and leaks, not migrants, are the core problem.
• There is concern that blaming population becomes a distraction from governance and investment failures.

Desalination, Energy and Technical Fixes

• Desalination is debated: some cite sub‑$1/m³ costs and widespread use in arid countries; others highlight high energy needs, capital intensity, and point out that feeding leaky networks with expensive desal water is wasteful.
• A few suggest pairing desal with surplus renewables; critics respond that “excess” power is intermittent and markets plus batteries will erode such opportunities.
• Many say building reservoirs and fixing pipes would be vastly cheaper and easier for the UK than large‑scale desalination.

Pricing, Metering and Usage Patterns

• Commenters contrast England’s widespread flat‑rate or unmetered billing with more metered systems in Germany and elsewhere; some see metering as essential to curb household waste.
• Others note big users are agriculture and industry; focusing only on domestic hosepipe bans and toilet flushing is seen as symbolic rather than structural.
• Examples from Scotland, Ireland, Quebec and Chicago show a range of “water as public good” models, some leading to overuse and underfunded infrastructure.

Broader Governance, Neoliberalism and “Nothing Works”

• The thread repeatedly zooms out: water is cited alongside rail, energy, health care and housing as evidence of a wider UK pattern of underinvestment, short‑termism and “Thatcherite” asset‑stripping.
• Some defend markets and competition in non‑monopoly sectors, but condemn the UK’s hybrid model as combining “all the disadvantages of private ownership with all the disadvantages of state control.”
• Others emphasise vetocracy and NIMBYism: even when companies or government want to build, local and legal obstacles stall projects for a decade or more.