Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | JUNE 2023 | 27 Water It is clear that British water infrastructure is in need of a signi cant upgrade to ensure it can e ectively serve its purpose and the needs of a growing population. Although additional investment will lead to fewer over ows and fewer issues of contamination, these improvements will not be achieved overnight, regardless of whether solutions are instigated by the state or by private companies Innovation Private companies, however, have far more freedom to experiment with out-of-the-box solutions. For example, to reduce the num- ber of trees that grow on land needed for run-o , one water company has introduced a grazing herd of sheep and a shepherdess to stabilise plant growth. Some would argue that the money which would be spent on renationalisation could be put to better use. For example, if the govern- ment is minded to raise funds (for instance, by selling low interest green bonds), that investment could be made available for a small mark-up to water companies undertak- ing the large infrastructure projects needed to cope with a rising population and climate change. This has the advantage of leverag- ing the government's ability to borrow at low interest rates, against the water companies' need to fund their investments. This is a con- ceptual inversion of Public Private Partner- ships, and could place the government as a preferred creditor, ahead of shareholders. It would be important for this funding to be ring-fenced and only available to improve, repair or build new infrastructure. It would also be necessary to balance these funds against the subsidy control provisions in the upcoming UK Procurement Bill, but this could be seen as a potential example of the elusive Brexit dividend. Adding in incentives such as providing access to lower interest rate loans could help break the damaging cycle of under investment that the industry is experiencing. Ultimately, the issues facing the water industry have not been caused by a single problem, and so there is no single, simple solution. However it is resolved, the situa- tion will take time, and will certainly require considerable investment before signi cant results are seen. While some may see rena- tionalisation as a panacea, improvements to the current system may be more e ective than implementing a whole system change only to discover that the grass is not always greener on the other side. Isaac Murdy and Helen Rowland, Shakespeare Martineau

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