Gardiner V., Matthews H. The changing geography of the United Kingdom
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RON JOHNSTON
6
and more people (though not only the excluded) are seeking relief through addictive drugs
(another source of economic enterprise—albeit illegal, except in the cases of nicotine and
alcohol). Poverty, unemployment, addiction and crime interact and generate spirals of decay.
They cause stresses within households and initiate the break-up of many partnerships and
families. Sheffield illustrates this for us through the film The Full Monty, whose underlying
theme is not just of men made unemployed by the collapse of the steel industry but also of
men without prospects, even hope; their roles in life are increasingly taken over by women
who succeed in the new service economy and who make men feel not only redundant but
also obsolescent. In some places, it is not just individual households that have fractured
under such strains (with consequent implications for housing and child-rearing) but entire
communities. The pit villages of South Yorkshire illustrate this, and another film —Brassed
Off—delivers the message superbly. The miners’ strike empowered women there for the
first time, both economically and politically, and when the strike was over many were
unwilling to return to their former domestic roles as expected by the men.
Social and cultural changes have been manifold within the culture of contentment in
the more affluent sectors of the economy too. Changing attitudes to childbearing and child-
rearing accompanied the increased participation of women in the labour force throughout
their lives, with a consequent expansion in the number of dual-career families dependent on
a range of formal and informal ways of providing childcare. Many of those families, especially
in the professions, involve one or both of the partners in long-distance commuting: substantial
numbers operate two homes during the working week. Commuting patterns are increasingly
complex and cross-cutting: many depend on private transport and contribute to the build-up
of traffic and its associated problems in rush-hours which begin on Sunday evenings and
end on Saturday mornings.
Social, cultural and economic changes are intertwined and inscribed in the country’s
landscapes. They interact with the political processes, and these too have been very
substantially modified in recent years. The post-war settlement which lasted from 1945
until the late 1970s was based on the goals of full employment and the reduction of
inequalities, enshrined in the five pillars of the welfare state—combating want, disease,
ignorance, squalor and idleness. This came under increasing attack from economists and
right-wing politicians as both unsustainable and a major constraint on the individual and
corporate enterprise necessary for successful economic restructuring in a globalising world:
the corporate-welfare state’s high and spiralling costs meant that taxation rates were too
high to encourage risk-taking while the necessary government borrowing both led to high
interest rates (another brake on investment and enterprise) and stimulated inflation. By the
mid-1990s, the case for reforming the welfare state was accepted by all political parties.
The critique of the welfare state was part of a broader attack on the state’s role in
contemporary society, accompanied by a rhetoric that it encouraged dependency and
discouraged self-help. The state was implicated in too many aspects of people’s lives, it
was argued, and its role should be reduced: people should take more control of their
present and future, and more of their necessities should be provided through much more
efficient and effective market mechanisms. At the same time, those services which remained
with the state—such as health-care and education—should be subject to the rigours of the
marketplace: many others, such as the public utilities, should be returned to that
marketplace, with the state, if necessary, acting only as a regulator to safeguard society’s
interests.
INTRODUCTION
7
Much of this rhetoric was implemented during the 1980s and 1990s, creating a new
political map of the United Kingdom. One of the main mechanisms chosen was to place a
wide range of public services—such as health-care trusts and many educational institutions
—under the management of non-elected boards of directors and governors which were
accountable to central government for their expenditure and the achievement of specified
targets, but not subject to direct democratic control. These quangos, as they became known,
were dominated by political appointees who accepted the pervasive rhetoric. Complementing
this trend was a decline in the role of the democratic state: central government oversight of
the detailed implementation of policies was reduced while local government powers were
eroded and in some cases eliminated.
Once again, Sheffield Attercliffe illustrates what has happened. Economic and social
regeneration was vested not in the democratically elected and accountable Sheffield City
Council (South Yorkshire County Council having already been eliminated as redundant in
1987) but in a quango—the Lower Don Development Corporation, whose membership was
dominated by government appointees (most of them businessmen) and who were responsible
for developing public-private partnerships to redevelop the valley. The City Council’s
responsibilities for land-use planning were substantially reduced and control of what went
on in a substantial component of their city was largely taken away from Sheffield residents.
At the same time, local government powers in other areas were reduced —they were required
to sell their council housing to sitting tenants at cut-price rates, for example, and prevented
from using the receipts to build more homes. Eventually, even those local councils dominated
by large left-wing Labour majorities were forced to accept the new ideology and
methodologies—radical Sheffield, in Patrick Seyd’s telling phrase, shifted its emphasis from
socialism to entrepreneurialism, replacing its role as a focus for anti-Thatcherism opposition
by joining the competition for inward investment in an ‘enterprise-favourable environment’,
while some of its leaders abandoned their socialist credentials and became avid supporters
of New Labour.
Local government was restructured too, by legislative fiat in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland, and by a complex system of pseudo-consultation in England that largely
failed, producing a complicated system of authorities. The goal was to make local government
more efficient and effective, reaping the economies of scale and scope—though the scope
could be that of the purchaser of services from outside contractors rather than the traditional
role of provider.
Government became both more centralised and less open to democratic accountability:
even the functions remaining with the local state apparatus were under strict central control,
notably (but not only) on the amount raised through local taxation. There was a growing
democratic deficit. Much of this occurred when the country was very divided politically:
the northern areas which suffered most were predominantly represented at Westminster and
governed locally by the Labour Party, which was in opposition nationally from 1979 until
1997, whereas almost all of the booming southern regions’ MPs were Conservatives, as
were a majority of councillors in most of their local governments until the Tory fall from
grace after 1992. The national political map changed in 1997, not because the northern
regions were becoming much more prosperous again relative to their southern counterparts
but because the electorate in the latter were increasingly disillusioned with the government,
with its divisions (especially over the major issue of British participation in the European
Union), sleaze, lack of leadership, and failed macro-economic policies (as exemplified by
8
Black Wednesday in September 1992 when sterling was forced out of the Exchange Rate
Mechanism, the precursor of European Monetary Union). New Labour replaced it with a
government having the largest House of Commons majority for sixty years: it won middle-
class support and seats in the south, not because it offered an alternative macro-economic
policy—indeed, it pledged that it would continue many of its opponents’ policies—but
because it looked better able to continue providing much of what had been delivered by the
Conservatives in the 1980s.
The democratic deficit has stimulated calls for constitutional reform, though much
of this has been elite-driven rather than populist. The main exception has been in Scotland,
where pressure for a devolved Parliament with tax-raising powers was substantially
confirmed in a 1997 referendum and the first elections were held in 1999. The Welsh also
voted in 1997 (by a slim majority) for a weaker form of devolution—a Welsh Assembly,
also elected in 1999; following the 1998 ‘Good Friday Agreement’ a devolved Assembly
was rapidly created in Northern Ireland, as part of a programme to end thirty years of
bloody inter-community strife there, with its first elections only three months later; and
Londoners voted in May 1998 for their own reconstituted metropolitan government led
by a separately elected ‘strong mayor’. There is considerable pressure for devolution to
some English regions—notably the North East and the South West—too. The political
map is being redrawn yet again, with potential implications for economic and social
directions.
All of this change is taking place on a landscape which is a palimpsest of many
thousands of years of human occupance, and which itself presents major constraints and
opportunities. It is experiencing growing demands to provide the fundamentals needed for
affluent living, not only agricultural products but also the raw materials for construction
projects; it is under pressure to contain those lifestyles, not least the further 4 million homes
which the government estimates are required over the next two decades; it is required to
absorb an increasing volume of waste materials; and it is affected by various global
environmental changes. Conservation and preservation of physical landscapes and the human
imprint upon them is in increasing conflict with those demands, and makes sustainable
living for future generations increasingly difficult to ensure.
All of the change described here has taken place in the last twenty years: it
represents another epoch in the remaking of the UK landscape. Each edition of this
book has appeared at what seemed to be a critical moment in that continual process: in
1983, at the end of a long period of reconstruction after the major slump of the early
1930s, punctuated by a world war; in 1991, after a decade of change as the welfare state
came under fire and the assumed superiority of the market was being put to the test; and
now in 1999 in the early stages of a new approach to that experiment. The basic themes
identified here are developed in the various chapters that follow; who can guess how
Robert Waller will represent their playing out in Sheffield Attercliffe before the general
election of 2007?
9
Chapter 2
Water resources
Vince Gardiner
In concluding the chapter on water resources in the previous edition of this book, Park said:
‘The water industry in the United Kingdom during the 1990s will look and act very differently
from how it did in the 1980s’ (Park 1991:169). This has undoubtedly proved to be the case,
with the privatisation of the water industry, legislation concerning water quality, and changes
in patterns of both demand and supply all interacting to ensure rising public awareness of,
interest in and controversy about water resource issues. In this Chapter the basic geography
of use and supply of water is outlined, and then developments and events during the 1990s
are discussed. The major theme of this discussion is the changing structure of the water
industry, especially in England and Wales.
The basic geography of water use and supply in the
United Kingdom
Although it is not always possible to differentiate clearly between supply of and demand for
water (see Park’s discussion, 1991), it is possible to think in at least conceptual terms of the
ways in which water is used, and the sources of supply of that water. In the United Kingdom
water is used for a great variety of purposes, which may be broadly categorised as domestic,
industrial and agricultural. Total use is discussed first, before individual uses are examined.
Total abstraction of water from all sources in England and Wales is shown in Table 2.1.
Although there is significant year-to-year variation, there is little evidence of a systematic trend
of increasing abstraction. In 1995, the total abstraction in England and Wales was divided as in
Table 2.2. About a third was used for public water supply, by the water companies; this includes
both water used in homes and water supplied to a wide variety of commercial, business and public
buildings. Figures for water put into public supply over the last twenty years show a 15 per cent
increase from 1974/5 to 1994/5, but only a 3 per cent increase within the last decade. Although
OFWAT (see p. 16) suggested in 1994 that the demand for public water supply was virtually
VINCE GARDINER
10
static, and would remain so until 2014– 15,
here is some suggestion (Figure 2.1) that
periodic and almost cyclic fluctuations in
demand are superimposed on a generally
rising trend. Troughs in total demand
occurred in 1988 and the early 1990s, but
overall demand continues to rise slowly,
for both the UK as a whole and its
constituent countries. A more detailed
analysis of the uses of water put into public
water supply in particular regions is shown
in Figure 2.2 for the end of the period
considered above.
Although the demand for water
supply fell until 1993, there has since been
an upturn in demand for both metered and
unmetered supplies. The growth in
demand for metered supplies varies from
company to company, being least in the
areas served by the South West and
Yorkshire companies, where rates are high
and there have been strong public
campaigns against charges. For
unmetered supplies again variation exists,
with North West, Southern, South West
and Yorkshire not indicating consistent
growth, unlike in the other areas.
Domestic use accounts for about
40 per cent of all water abstracted for
the public supply, and is affected by
increasing affluence and higher
standards of living. The average
household uses about 380 litres per day,
or about 160 litres for every person, one-
third of which is used for each of toilet
flushing and miscellaneous uses. Only
around 5 litres per day is used for
drinking and cooking. The main
increases in household water use are for
personal hygiene and for watering of
gardens, both of which are most significant in summer, when supplies are under most stress.
The accuracy of forecasts of future demand will remain heavily dependent on predictions
of economic, lifestyle and cultural changes within the communities of consumers, and are
likely to be further influenced by climatic change.
About half of the water abstracted in 1995 in England and Wales went to the electricity supply
industry, mainly for hydropower. Other industry accounted for about an eighth of the total. Only a
TABLE 2.1 Estimated actual abstractions from all
surface and groundwater sources in England and
Wales, 1985–95 (for limitations of these data, see
source)
Source: Abstracted from data in the Department of
the Environment, Transport and the Regions
(DETR) World Wide Web pages.
TABLE 2.2 Total abstraction of water in England
and Wales, 1995
Source: Abstracted from data in the DETR World
Wide Web pages.
WATER RESOURCES
11
very small proportion was used for
irrigation in agriculture (less than 1
per cent), although there is an
underlying trend for this to increase.
Although spray irrigation forms
only a very small proportion of the
total demand for water, it can be very
significant because the water is
immediately lost as a resource, and
it occurs in a concentrated period of
the year, usually in the driest areas,
and in driest years (Figure 2.3). Over
the last forty years changes in
agricultural practices have moved
the emphasis in irrigation away from
increasing yields and towards
securing better quality and a more
reliable supply. Irrigation rates have
doubled from approximately 1,300
litres per day per hectare in 1982 to
2,500 litres per day per hectare in
1992, although these rates depend
greatly on weather conditions.
Potatoes account for most of the
water used (59 per cent in 1992),
closely followed by other vegetables
(see also Chapters 5 and 19).
There has been a general
reduction in the amount of water
abstracted for industry and
general agricultural purposes
over the last decade, attributed
partly to increased efficiency in
use, and partly to the shift in the
national economy away from
manufacturing and towards
service industries using less water
(see Chapter 7). This decline has
however been accompanied by a
general increase in the demand
for water for irrigation, fish farming and associated uses, and hydropower.
Since 1989, the vast majority of people in the UK have received their water and
sewerage services from companies appointed under licence and regulated by official bodies
(see pp. 16–17). However, such services can be provided by others. These supplies are not
regulated, but need to comply with recognised water quality standards, and need to be licensed
by the Environment Agency for abstraction and discharge of water. An unregulated supply
FIGURE 2.1 Trends in public water supply in the United
Kingdom, 1985–96
Source: From figures in the DETR World Wide Web
pages.
Note: For all figures and data in this chapter derived
from Environment Agency, OFWAT and DETR data,
there are considerable caveats and qualifications to be
attached to the data, and the original source should be
consulted.
VINCE GARDINER
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FIGURE 2.2 Variations in use of water abstracted from surface and groundwater
for Environment Agency Regions, 1995
Source: From figures in the DETR World Wide Web pages.
FIGURE 2.3 Irrigation water used per hectare of irrigated land, England and Wales (litres per day)
Source: Derived from figure in the DETR World Wide Web pages.
WATER RESOURCES
13
could be a well supplying the owner’s premises and perhaps several neighbouring sites, or
could be a larger supply serving a village through a pipe network. There are around 50,000
self-contained water supplies in England and Wales which supply more than one property,
and many industrial customers have their own sewage treatment works; 4 per cent of domestic
properties in England and Wales are not connected to main sewers, having either individual
septic tanks and cesspools, or private treatment works.
Sources of water
Water for water supply in the United Kingdom originates from both surface water, as rivers
and lakes, and from groundwater. Although most parts of the country draw water from both
sources, the balance between the two varies markedly, depending on both the availability of
adequate surface water supplies and the suitability of the underlying rocks to provide
groundwater (Figure 2.4). In general, the wetter north and west parts of the UK, which tend to
be underlain by rocks which are poor aquifers, rely predominantly on surface water, whereas
the drier south and east, which also have more aquifers, are more reliant on groundwater.
Substantial amounts of water are also drawn from estuaries for industrial purposes,
especially for cooling in electricity generation. It should be noted that many industrial uses of
water, for example for hydroelectric power and for cooling, and fish farming, do not ultimately
consume water resources, as the water is shortly returned to surface water within the hydrological
FIGURE 2.4 Estimated abstractions from various sources of water, 1995
Source: From data in the DETR World Wide Web pages.
VINCE GARDINER
14
cycle, albeit in some cases as of degraded quality. In contrast, some uses, such as spray irrigation
and abstractions for evaporative cooling, do represent a loss to the water resource.
The framework of public water supply
The present legislative, administrative and organisational framework for water resource
management in the UK differs considerably from that which existed when the previous
editions of this book were published. The public supply of water in the United Kingdom
was first carried out by a multitude of private water companies and local authorities, with
over 3,000 such bodies before the First World War. The 1945 Water Act encouraged
amalgamations, and by 1963 the numbers had reduced to 100 water boards, fifty local
authorities and twenty-nine privately owned statutory water companies—some of which had
been operating since the seventeenth century. However, the need was recognised for larger
units which could provide the integrated management of water resources within major river
basins, and ten Regional Water Authorities (RWAs) were set up by the 1974 Water Act, as
public undertakings. The twenty-nine statutory water companies then in existence acted as
their agents for water supply, with the water supply and disposal functions of numerous
local authorities being combined together into a river basin framework under the water
authorities. The ten multipurpose water authorities, based on major river basins, had a wide
range of responsibilities connected with the water cycle, including conservation, pollution,
drainage, fisheries, water supply and sewerage. The majority of their members were from
local authorities, and they calculated customers’ bills on the basis of rateable values.
In the second half of the 1970s, however, there was insufficient maintenance of and
capital investment in the water distribution system, whilst the RWAs were accused of
individually building substantial empires, including capital investment in large supply
schemes such as the Carsington (Derbyshire) and Kielder (Northumberland) reservoir
schemes, which were arguably neither efficient nor necessary within the national context.
During the 1980s, the RWAs increasingly became subject to government targets and
financial controls, similar to those of the nationalised industries. At a time of economic recession
they were faced with a need for increased expenditure and investment in capital projects to
meet increased water quality and environmental standards, mainly resulting from EC legislation.
Their budgets were squeezed by the conflicting pressures of the need for investment and limits
on public funding and borrowing. Prices inevitably rose, and there was increasing pressure to
find alternative sources of finance for the required environmental and quality improvements.
A preliminary move away from public control occurred in 1983, when as a result of
the 1983 Water Act the local authorities lost some rights of representation on the RWAs, and
their meetings were closed to the press and public, although Consumer Consultative
Committees were set up as some degree of compensation. A discussion paper on privatisation
of the industry was published in 1986, which advocated privatisation of the RWAs as a means
of freeing them from government control, and as a means of ensuring access to sources of
funds for capital investments. Many organisations and individuals expressed concern about
privatising the regulatory aspects of the water authorities, seeing possible conflicts in a role
combining responsibility for water quality with that for sewage disposal. Despite concerted
campaigns, especially from environmentalists and those opposed to the privatisation of the
regulatory role of the RWAs, the 1989 Water Act allowed the RWAs to be sold off as part of
the Conservative government’s programme of privatisation. Independent regulatory bodies
WATER RESOURCES
15
were set up: the National Rivers Authority to deal with water quality in natural water bodies;
the Director-General of Water Services (OFWAT) to regulate prices in the industry; and the
Drinking Water Inspectorate, to deal with drinking water quality. The then twenty-nine private
companies were brought under the same regulatory controls
While privatisation was being discussed, the implications of EC legislation on water
quality standards became more apparent. In recognition of this, the government wrote off
£5 billion of the industry’s debts before privatisation, and endowed them with a further £1.6
billion cash injection (the so-called ‘green dowry’). Shares in the ten water companies which
replaced the RWAs were offered for sale in November 1989, and the offer was oversubscribed.
Most of the private water-only companies in existence before 1989 have since re-registered
under the Companies Act 1985, so that their earlier restrictions on borrowing and paying of
dividend no longer apply. Since 1989, twelve of these companies which were in common
ownership have been brought together under five single licences.
Under the present system the privatised water companies, comprising the ten large
water service (water supply and sewerage) companies, resulting from the sale of the former
RWAs, and the much smaller water supply companies which had never been absorbed into
the RWAs, have a statutory duty to maintain supplies. Under the 1989 Act regulatory roles
were given to three new agencies, the National Rivers Authority, OFWAT and the DWI (see
pp. 16–17). A regulator was felt necessary, as water formed a natural monopoly. Regulation
relies on comparative competition and on competition for capital in the financial markets.
OFWAT has allowed prices charged for water to be increased above the rate of inflation, but
only in order to allow for investments necessary in order to meet raised standards, although
there are those who believe that this is a failure of the regulatory system. It has been argued
that the mergers which have taken place have reduced the scope for comparative competition.
Since privatisation, the industry has been affected by further legislation, which has
consolidated existing legislation, and strengthened the powers of regulators. In addition, in
1994, the government relinquished its special (‘Golden Share’) holdings in the water and
sewerage companies, which has exposed them to the potential of merger and take-over as
for any other quoted company. However the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has to
be consulted if any proposal would result in a new water enterprise with gross assets exceeding
£30 million, and there is also European legislation governing certain large mergers.
Notwithstanding this, since 1989 several of the water-only companies have been taken over
by major shareholders, and their number has been reduced by amalgamations, to eighteen
at the time of writing. Mergers have occurred between various utility companies of different
kinds (e.g. North West Water and NORWEB, the electricity company, 1995); between water-
only and water and sewerage utilities (e.g. Northumbrian Water and North East Water in
1995); and between water-only companies (e.g. East Surrey Water and Sutton Water in 1995).
Some water and sewerage companies are now part of multi-utility groups (for example North
West Water, Dwr Cymru and Southern Water Services are all joined to a regulated electricity
business), and these multi-utility groups are increasingly moving into other competitive utility
businesses such as telecommunications and gas. A number of the smaller water-only
companies have also entered into the competitive gas business. Each company is required
to operate at arm’s length from its associates, and without cross-subsidy, and further
investigations are continuing into trading relationships and the transparency of financial
performance. Some of these groupings have an international dimension, for example as in
the linking of Southern Water and Scottish Power, and the merger of Northumbrian Water