Croydon MP Steve Reed has today hit out at the monopoly water companies after reports of sickness among people in south London which has prompted Thames Water to test its supplies for possible contamination.
People in Beckenham and Sydenham have fallen ill in recent days with stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea – symptoms similar to those found in more than 100 cases in Devon last week due to a waterborne disease, when the public was asked to boil their water because of contamination fears.
“Our water industry is broken,” said Reed, Labour’s environment spokesperson. “Just days ago, a parasite outbreak was making people sick in Devon. Now Beckenham’s drinking water may not be safe to drink.”
Cryptosporidium was found in the water supply in Brixham 10 days ago, forcing South West Water to tell 17,000 households and businesses in the area not to use their tap water for drinking without boiling and cooling it first.
Beckenham residents struck by a stomach bug, The Guardian reports, include “a four-year-old boy suffering days of vomiting and an adult woman who was so unwell she went to hospital with stomach pain, vomiting and dehydration”.
Fight them on the beaches: Steve Reed and Labour won’t renationalise the failing monopoly water companies
The paper reports: “Whole families have reported becoming unwell, and fear it may be caused by a bug in the water.
“After reporting the issue to Thames Water, people who have been unwell said technicians came to take samples of their tap water.
“Thames Water confirmed its technicians collected samples, which have been sent for laboratory analysis.”
By lunchtime today, Thames Water was saying that no contamination had been discovered in its testing.
“Our technicians collected samples from a property in the area on Tuesday 22 May following customers contacting the business,” a spokesperson said.
“Initial on-site testing carried out by our accredited technician did not indicate an aesthetic issue with the water, further samples were also collected for laboratory analysis and results showed no concerns.
“Customers can find information about their water supply by inputting their postcode on our website. Should anyone be concerned about their tap water, we’d encourage them to contact us.”
Today, a spokesperson for Thames Water said: “We take the quality of our water extremely seriously – it is the highest quality drinking water in the world – and since 2010 more than 99.95% of tests taken from customers’ taps met the standard required by UK and European legislation.
“Every year, we carry out more than 500,000 tests, taking samples from source to tap.”
In Devon, 2,500 properties remain under “boil tap water notices” as the system continues to be flushed, and there has been no date given to those properties for when the water will be safe to drink again.
Read more: Whether it’s your water supplier or MP, you deserve a choice
Read more: Bailing out the water companies is poor policy – and unpopular
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
This “boil your water” warning coincided with the call by the Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, to prepare for armageddon by laying in supplies of, amongst other things, bottled H20. The biggest threat to our national security isn’t Putin, Chinese hackers or an incoming meteorite the size of Leicester but unbridled Tory capitalism
The root of the problem is clear in the way that Steve Reed talks about it. He refers to a ‘water industry’ rather than a public service. He and the Labour Party still think that greed is good and want our vital services to be run for a profit rather than run for our benefit.
Thames Water and the other private companies have given away billions to their bosses and shareholders but they are demanding that our bills must go up before they will undertake the work necessary to stop this sort of incident becoming a common occurrence. At the moment the only drain that works is the one that drains our money into their bank accounts.
Steve Reed and Labour (and the Conservatives and LibDems) have no intention of stopping this privatisation scandal. That’s why you need to vote Green if want public services back in public hands.
I rushed out to do some panic buying of bottled water, in accordance with the government’s recent instructions on how we should prepare for an emergency. Just to ensure we were covered, I added avocados, artisan sour-dough loaves and extra-virgin olive oil to my supermarket trolley. I hope that should help see us through to the end of this squalid government.
It is scandal, as Peter says.
From big banks to water bosses to oil and gas giants, the Conservatives have let big companies off the hook with poor regulation and windfall tax loopholes, when at the same time people are struggling to put food on the table.
The model of loading up debt on steady cash flow type businesses comes from the leveraged private equity sector.
Draining Thames Water of that money borrowed to reward the company’s past and current owners is a complete disgrace.
Nationalising Thames Water could land taxpayers with a huge debt liability in addition to the needed infrastructure spend. It is unlikely that the courts would allow complete confiscation of assets and debt due.
Better to keep the private sector tied to this project but, as Liberal Democrats propose, change the water utilities into public interest companies with environmental and quality standards to secure, backed by a new Utilities watchdog with the ineffective Ofwat replaced and stop bonuses for water company bosses.