Life of a Chalkstream: More fantasy figures from Southern Water

Greetings!

Move over Einstein. Put away your tables Pythagarus. Do not even bother to invent the computer Charles Babbage for a new mathematical genius is amongst us. Welcome, Tim McMahon of Southern Water, the likely recipient of the next Nobel Prize for Mathematics.

The story so far. Tim McMaths made a claim that the South-East of England was drier than Istanbul. This was soon shot down in flames, but with a brain that processes faster that the most super of supercomputers McMaths came back with new workings to prove that the South-East, though not technically drier than Istanbul, was indubitably equally dry. However, McMaths, who probably hones his calculating skills watching endless repeats of the numbers game on quiz show Countdown had to perform two feats of contorted logic to arrive (again) at this implausible claim.

Firstly, he had to include the population of London in his calculations. The last time I looked our capital was most definitely not in the south-eastern portion of England but hey-ho Tim perhaps you are lining yourself up for a Nobel Prize double to include geography. Secondly, Tim has used the historic average for Istanbul rainfall but compares it one of the driest on periods on record for South-East England.

All this I know because McMaths came up with the new ‘equally dry’ assertion having been challenged in a meeting which raised my comments in the previous Newsletter. Subsequently My Rain Truth as McMaths’ revised calculations should be known as from now on were then circulated to Southern Water employees as the official line to bail out the sinking McMaths.

Amusing as all this is, my worry is that it vividly illustrates the failing in the management culture of Southern Water. Rather than admit a mistake and move on, the employees are encouraged to hunker down behind the flimsy barricades of half-truths, defending the indefensible making both themselves and the company look, at the kindest reading, absurd.

Water company economics 101

Just to prove I am not entirely unsympathetic to the plight of Southern Water let me tell you something of the small Hampshire village of Sutton Scotney, which happens to be close to the source of the River Dever, a major River Test tributary with our beloved Bullington Manor a mile or so downstream.

Sutton Scotney, with a population of just under a thousand, is what would be regarded as a big village. It has a pub, village shop, nursing home, fire station, filling station, garage plus the substantial Naomi House, a children’s hospice. Like many villages both in Hampshire and across England it has grown substantially this century, in this case by 35% but is served by the same sewage works that was built sometime in the previous century to serve a much smaller population at a time when average household water usage was much lower.

Sutton Scotney sewage works in progress

These works have not been up to the task of serving the current 590 households of Sutton Scotney for a great many years, as evidenced by the almost permanent presence of standby tankers taking away the overflow. These tankers, which you see at similar works all over the county, cost I am told £2,000 a day, so something in the region of quarter to half a million pounds a year just to keep Sutton Scotney on sewage life support.

That would be fine if Southern Water were deriving oodles of money from the villagers, but they are not. The income from Sutton Scotney for sewerage services, based on the 76p a day/household tariff Southern will be able to charge once the new pricing kicks in, will be in the region of £165,000 a year. So currently the annual loss, with standard running costs plus the tankers, is well into six figures. Now to be fair to Southern Water they are not blind to the issue and have been, since last winter, upgrading the works with the project costing £5.2m.

It does not take a financial wizard to see that there is no way this work is going to pay out for Southern Water. Even if we assumed the running costs of the sewage works were zero, with no future maintenance bills or any cost of finance to add, the payback on that £5.2m would take 31 years. Add in any or all of the true costs and the payback is pretty well no time ever.

Sutton Scotney

This is the bind that Southern Water, Thames Water and most all of the water companies find themselves in. They have to modernise to meet customer need and environmental legislation, but the cost of that modernisation far exceeds any possible financial reward. No wonder KKR and other institutions are running for the hills or writing down the value of water company stakes to zero. They see the writing on the wall.

For us consumers there is a mighty bill ahead. If we want plentiful water through our taps, toilets that flush away with ease and waste treatment standards that return clean water back to our rivers then charges will have to rise not just by a percentage but by many times what we currently pay. The question is whether there is a politician, both brave and wise, who can sell this difficult message.

The excitement of the opening day

My upbringing was such that I entirely missed out on coarse fishing; in east Hampshire we were blessed with chalkstreams so of bream, barbel, carp, chub and perch I knew nothing. In fact the first I knew of this strange breed of non-fly fishing folk who sought out such species was after an all-nighter at university. The residences at the University of East Anglia overlooked the Broads and at the dawn of one mid-June morning I saw figures emerge from the mist hurrying towards the water. It was, of course, 16 June, a date that had had no significance to me until that moment.

To this day, half a century or more, that vision still stays with me. I recall exactly the urgency of those figures to reach the bank, set up the rods and get fishing. The opening day was a very special event. Back then all year coarse fishing venues were few and far between. The close season meant closed to all fishing for most people, so the anticipation of the opening day ramped up as the end of the three-month fishing drought came ever closer.

People got positively excited about getting back on the water. The Angling Times doubled its page count to fulfil advertiser needs. Angling shops stocked up on all sorts of goodies. Kids pestered their fathers as if it was Christmas Day soon. In a way it is a shame that wide eyed excitement no longer exists quite as it did.

But that said, we still have a strict closed season on the rivers so I know of one person who will be exhibiting childlike enthusiasm to be back on his beloved River Wye this week. I am, of course, talking about John Bailey, both angler extraordinaire and currently in the throes of filming the eighth series of Gone Fishing for which he has been Angling Consultant since the very first episode. I know neither Bob nor Paul will gripe if I say this programme would not exist without John. You may never see him in front of the camera but believe me he is an almost Godlike presence behind the camera. He is the fishing Mr Fixit.

If you want to join John on the River Wye between his filming stints for predominately barbel and chub, check out our link. The season runs from now to late autumn with the days available for singles, pairs or groups to four. John provides everything - just bring yourself and a pair of waders.

In praise of the Summer Solstice

There is something inestimably special about the Summer Solstice. The day in the year when the upward trajectory towards summer ends, the rest of the year a slow slide toward the depths of winter. Of all the days in the year it is my favourite, albeit seasonally bitter and sweet. Usually I let sleep take me as soon as it comes but on this night I fight tiredness to enjoy every last moment of the blue/grey night that never really gets dark. Even the bats, who ordinarily return to their roosts, seem to treat this extended half-darkness as an all-night diner.

The thing about the solstice is that it is a moment in the calendar over which we have no control. Christmas. Easter. New Year. They are all human constructs. Should a cataclysmic event or manmade disaster wipe us all from the planet (my money is on the latter) none of those days will exist, the dates passing unnoticed. But the solstice is different. It has been here since the start of time. It will be here until the end of time. It regulates our very existence. Without the cadence of the seasons it creates the planet as we know it would not exist.

In truth, contemporary humankind is daft; we should have kept with the sun worshipping of the Inca tribes and their like. Our modern celebrations of made-up dates are laughable in the face evolution. The next time somebody proposes as new Bank Holiday for some notional event we should pause and ask: What date really matters?