The’re flush out of ideas!

One of Owl’s old feathered friends was puzzled to receive this plea from a “neighbour”:

“Help us improve our water in Budleigh Salterton.”

This “neighbour” turned out to be David Reed, the prospective Tory candidate for the redrawn constituency of Exmouth and Exeter East who doesn’t live in the “neighbourhood”.

Owl’s friend thought that the Conservatives had sorted the problem “once and for all” with the publication of their “Storm Overflows Reduction Plan”.

The policy David Reed is stuck with is one of gradual improvements over the next 26 years.

Left to Conservatives “values” our young candidate will be an old man nearing his 60s before overflows are a thing of the past.

The current MP for Budleigh is the itinerant Simon Jupp. He explained, in the first Westminster Hall debate he proudly led last March why conservatives won’t move any faster:

“……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.“

The same point was also made by Thérèse Coffey in her introduction to the policy paper.

Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan Updated: 25 September 2023

In this Plan, we are setting new targets which will revolutionise our sewer system and generate the most significant investment and delivery programme ever undertaken by water companies to protect people and the environment:

• By 2035, water companies will have: improved all storm overflows discharging near every designated bathing water; and improved 75% of storm overflows discharging into or near ‘high priority sites’ (as defined in Annex 1). 

• By 2045, water companies will have improved all remaining storm overflows discharging into or near ‘high priority sites’.

• By 2050, no storm overflows will be permitted to operate outside of unusually heavy rainfall or to cause any adverse ecological harm.

The die is cast with the Tories and Owl’s friend thinks the best way to make progress on improving water is to follow a different path: