Running Out of Water!

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Hi, welcome to another episode of Hot Takes. Britain is being warned that even the water in our taps may not be safe from government failure. Um, a House of Lords Committee says that public water demand could exceed supply by the equivalent of 2,000 Olympic swimming pools a day within 30 years. And why? Well, it's a mixture of population growth, climate change, leaking pipes, and basically decades of failure. uh of uh building and repairing and maintaining proper infrastructure. Um despite the population growing by 21% in 30 years, Britain has not built a major reservoir since 1992.

[00:00:42]I've been saying this for some time.

[00:00:43]Britain is going to run out of water, particularly in the south. Um we're not short of rain, of course. H from it.

[00:00:51]What we're short of is a way of capturing uh the rain and treating that water and then delivering that water because all the pipes leak. We've got one of the worst one of the just as an aside, one of the problems we have as Britain is that we want the first um full water plants, water treatments, um national water supplies, all this pipelines and everything. Because we were the first, we made a lot of mistakes. others learned from them. Um you see that in the London sewers first with an entire sewer system. Brilliant after the big stink but because we were the first and it was massively overengineered at the time. Basilgette Basiljet um he he did this. Oddly enough his greatgrandson um brought us big brother. So while uh one basiljet took all the from our houses uh his great grandson pumped it back in. Hey. Anyway, um and so the trouble is this is ancient infrastructure. The cost of actually going down, digging it all out, and replacing it and getting it right is astronomical. But it has to happen.

[00:02:00]Um nearly a fifth of public water demand is lost through leakage. 20% of all our water, my god. Uh ministers talk about plans, reviews, and future investment, but are actually doing nothing about it now. Um, the government says it will not allow the taps to run dry, but uh, well, unless they pull their finger out, like the little boy at the dyke, really, isn't it? Um, unless they pull their finger out, it it's going to happen. Um, there's sewage sandals, um, leaks, drought warnings, no reservoirs, and voters want more than just soft, calming words of reassurance from transient politicians, most of whom will be dead by 2055.

[00:02:38]um we we actually need someone to build something. So I think as a matter of national security uh and national infrastructure security, they need to jolly well get on and do the job. basically find out where we can build a reservoir and build a reservoir and make it a big one and make sure that when leaks are discovered that they're not repaired that that's the entire section is dug up and replaced with the latest tech that will keep it clean and running for many many years. Um, I know from experience in the construction industry when we have to put in and we go onto a site or whatever and there's no water supply, we have to tap it in there. Uh, we're we're we're tapping in we're putting in like the very latest kind of were I've retired from that now, but we're we're putting in the very latest kind of sewer lines, water lines, etc. But we're tapping on to something that might be 120 years old. It's it's weird. Um, but that's how it goes, you know. U, you've got to put new stuff in, you've got to upgrade, you got to fix. And if water companies say they can't afford to do it, then they have to stop being water companies and hand it over to the government. And the government will pay, I mean, out of taxpayers money, but we have to pay for it somehow. Um, and so let's do it because otherwise we just won't have any water.

[00:04:07]Um, it's it's not a question of should we do do it. It's we must. But let's see which government has got the balls to say, "Okay, we're going to spend a h 100red billion upgrading Britain's water supply." I tell you what, it's it's a hundred billion you could spend.

[00:04:28]It' be better than spending on HR2 or HS2. HR2. Uh, I'm mixing up one sort of water and another. Uh, better than spending 100 100 billion on HS2 just to get to Birmingham 20 minutes quicker. But there we go. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks very much and don't waste water. Bye.