Simon Jupp’s recent charm offensive  doesn’t seem to be winning hearts and minds in the farming community. – Owl 

As Devon County Show opens, the county’s farming leaders are asking the Government to do more to support their family farms.

Lisa Young www.southwestfarmer.co.uk 

A recent survey by the NFU showed that confidence levels in the industry are at their lowest level for three years.

The Farmer Confidence Survey found that the main concern for farmers in the region was steep increases in costs of production, with 88 per cent saying they are being negatively affected by price rises of ‘inputs’ like energy, fuel and fertiliser.

Eighty-two per cent said the phasing out of current farming support payments – which were worth £120 million to Devon in 2020 – is negatively impacting their business confidence and 72 per cent highlighted the impact of increased regulation and legislation.

Farmers are hoping to find out more about what the government’s intentions are at the Devon County Show, which begins today at Westpoint near Exeter.

Devon NFU chair Paul Glanvill, a dairy farmer from Woodbury near Exeter said: “Our family farms are a key part of the county’s economy, with food and farming contributing more than £1.7 billion annually.

“As a family we have invested heavily in facilities at our farm, and if we are to encourage the next generation into the agricultural industry then more farmers need to have the confidence to do the same.

“There are many challenges facing us at the moment and we will be asking politicians at the show what they intend to do to help secure the future of such a crucial industry.

“In particular we are still awaiting many details of the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) that is supposed to replace the Basic Payment Scheme, so it is high time we heard more about that.”

The annual survey also found three key factors that would make farmers in the region more willing to invest in the next three years.

They want to see the introduction of a government strategy to avoid them being undercut by food imports from countries with lower production standards, where the carbon footprint caused by food production is much higher than our own.

Farrmers also say they need to see an increase in output prices and a reduction in levels of input price inflation.

Mr Glanvill added that this week’s Farm to Fork food security summit, which saw the NFU and other bodies calling on the government to make sure food security is higher up the policy agenda was a positive step in the right direction, but farmers needed the government to deliver action, not just words.

“We want to see a commitment to maintaining Britain’s food self-sufficiency at 60 per cent whilst avoiding imports that may be causing environmental harm elsewhere in the world, and for supply chains to be made fairer.

“We also need to see Defra and Natural England recognise the role of farmers as custodians of the landscape, and work with us as we seek to enhance the natural environment that it is in all our interests to preserve.”

The NFU marquee will be in its usual position above the main livestock rings at the Devon County Show and NFU president Minette Batters will be there today.

Yesterday’s mea culpa came from Water UK, an umbrella organisation funded by the water companies to represent the water industry as a whole. It was obviously intended as a “pitch rolling” exercise, softening us up to pay a second time for something we have already paid for.

Feargal Sharkey:

“What I am actually hearing is no apology for the fact we have paid them for a service we haven’t got, they are now suggesting we pay them a second time for a service we haven’t had,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We should have an apology for the suggestion they are going to put bills up by £10bn for their incompetence and their greed. This is nothing to celebrate.”

The detailed industry proposals include:

Resilient Water Supplies. The aim is to reduce the amount of water taken from rivers by reducing leakage from pipes and helping customers to reduce their own storage. New supplies of water will be sourced locally and regionally.

Bill increases £25 for the average bill

Tap quality drinking water. Taking a source to tap investment approach to ensure customers continue to receive high quality water that looks tastes and smells great

Bill increases £15 for the average bill

Controlled and managed drainage Invest in sewer and wastewater network treatment processes. Protect bathing beaches and environmentally important sites as a priority

Bill increases £95 for the average bill

Environmental leaders Improve coastal and river water quality. Increase biodiversity through natural capital solutions, planting trees and restoring peatland. Invest in renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions to reach net zero by 2030

Bill increases £13 for the average bill

Customers and communities to have a great experience every time they interact. By improving performance and being transparent and open. To increase the level of trust.

Bill increases £10 for average bill

The expected cost to the consumer

The current average household combined bill is at present £476

£476 (+£25 +£15 +£95 +£13 +£10) £158 a 33% increase on top of inflation to £634

We await the verdict from:

OFWAT – the regulator; the Government; and at the general election us, the voters.

Here is what Simon Jupp said in March:

……Of course, in a perfect world, we would stop sewage spills completely and immediately. Sadly, that is virtually impossible in the short term; because of the pressure on our water infrastructure, we would risk the collapse of the entire water network, and the eye-watering costs involved mean we would need not just a magic money tree, but a whole forest.

Pledges and apologies will not be enough to clear UK waters of raw sewage

Sandra Laville www.theguardian.com 

Across the country this weekend campaigners will paddle out on their local rivers or beaches to warn water companies they will not put up with another summer of sewage pollution.

No doubt they will be buoyed up by the high-profile mea culpa trumpeted by privatised water companies on Thursday, along with a promise to treble their existing investment in pipes, water treatment works and water storage to £10bn over the next 10 years.

But if Ruth Kelly, the head of the industry body Water UK and one of the architects of this belated change in direction, thinks it will see off any more of these mass protests, she is likely to be disappointed.

Kelly, who is new to the job, reverted to dubious claims about the Victorians as she promised the new investment. “These are 150-year-old pipes, and sewage systems that need to be upgraded,” she said. The Victorian myth has been used for years by water companies as an excuse not to act because the task was just too great.

In fact pipes, sewage and treatment plants mostly date back to the 1970s and 80s. In the more than three decades since water was privatised, there have been many opportunities to invest the necessary money to keep modernising, but as some water bosses now admit, they have instead overseen decades of underinvestment, while taking huge salaries – in one case £3.9m – and paying dividends to shareholders which last year reached £1.4bn.

Within the puff of the announcement carefully placed in friendly media on Thursday by an industry forced into a change of tack, the crux is stark. It is the customer who will be paying for this trebled investment, which water companies should have been carrying out for years to fulfil their legal duties. And it has always been the customer who pays, as the once publicly owned utility has morphed over the decades into a highly complex, opaque financial instrument set up to maximise returns for investors.

Now the customer will be asked to pay even more if the companies are true to their word and triple their investment. This is despite Ofwat having made clear last year that water companies had all the funding needed to carry out all their legal responsibilities, which are to treat sewage and provide clean water, and did not need to raise bills.

Kelly said on Thursday that by and large the water companies had indeed been carrying out their legal duties; a spin which may be one too far for many of those waxing surfboards and blowing up paddleboards before the mass protest on Saturday.

So far have some water companies been from carrying out their legal duties :that six of them are at the centre of a major investigation into suspected illegal activity by Ofwat.

And it was only two years ago that Southern Water was fined a record £90m for illegally dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected waters amid a reprimand from the judge for its repeated criminality.

The water activist and former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey did not have his tongue in his cheek when he suggested on Thursday the water companies should be paying the customers the £10bn in compensation for failing to do their legal duty. And the idea is not so far-fetched, given compensating customers and the environment is built into the regulatory system when companies fail to fulfil their responsibilities.

Behind the grovelling apologies and promises of more money – promises which seem to come once a month as the election looms – there is still a lack of recognition that the public have for years been paying for a service which they did not get. It has taken surfers, swimmers, paddlers and dedicated data detectives such as Prof Peter Hammond to reveal the scale of the water companies’ failures; and with the print still drying on their apology, those guardians of the waters will continue to be watching and holding those responsible to account.

Owl sees that newly elected Cllr. Sophie Richards was campaigning hard in Greg Hands’ constituency in London on Wednesday for more capacity on the District Line.

Doesn’t seem to have much relevance to the lives of the good people of Sidmouth.

On the other hand it could make a lot of sense to a wannabe Tory parliamentary candidate.

Campaigning with the Chairman of the Party must have certain attractions over campaigning with Simon Jupp.

As Owl has already remarked, Sophie has a  track record of campaigning hither and thither. 

Owl doesn’t expect to see her in Simouth very often.

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