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« Reply #30 on: 28 November, 2011, 02:34:58 PM » |
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Some interesting points indeed.
As I understand it, it has been illegal to discharge untreated liquid effluent to a watercourse for many years, which is why there has to be a soakaway into which it is discharged so that the soil can 'process' the pathogens meaning that the water, when it does reach a watercourse, has been 'made safe'.
Obviously, with the high water table in this area, untreated waste is often pushed to the surface, especially in times of wet weather. Also, the situation is compounded by septic tanks back-filling from surface water that enters them via the soakaway, meaning the sanitary fittings in the house no longer work. Very often people address this by dropping a pump into the tank and pumping to the surrounding land or a nearby watercourse, some of the excess water, (which will then re-enter the tank via the soakaway). The proper alternative is to cough up £60 odd, to have the tank emptied by a contractor. Trouble is, if the soil is that wet the tank refills with surface water in a very short time and you are back at square one.
Also, those contractors who remove this waste often just spread it on fields anyway, (solids and all), as you will see if you walk down Mullicourt Road, nice!
The outfall from our treatment plant is a lot less smelly than untreated waste and conforms to EA regulations for discharge to a watercourse or to the surface, but I still dislike it being there.
Everyone needs to realise and to understand though, that AW is not 'allowing' people to connect free, .....it has no choice. It is compelled by law* to provide a mains sewerage system if certain criteria are met, (soil porosity, risk to public health etc). AW is not doing this to be nice to us it is doing it because it has to.
(*European law... our own laws take no heed of rural communities as they are based too heavily on the 'core & periphery' school of thought).
AW could, if it were serious about this, connect its system to the existing pipework for everyone at no charge to the householder, it is in AW's gift to do this, yet they choose not to. It is a bit like teenagers who are compelled by 'school rules' to wear a tie. They will wear one because they have been forced to, against their will, which is why it is always at half-mast and with the fattest knot and shortest tail they can create.
AW's policy is clearly to comply with the letter of the law and to take no heed of the spirit. For many people the cost of funding the connection is simply prohibitive, no matter what the other advantages. If you do not have enough money in the bank to pay for it that is the end of the story for most, (given that retired people and those on a low income will have problems taking out a second mortgage to fund this work).
Enforcement action against anyone causing a pollution nuisance is nothing to do with AW, but falls to the 'environmental health dept' (or whatever they call themselves today) of the local authority. They may choose to take the householder to court to try to force them to connect, BUT it is a long-established legal standard in this country that the court must recognise that you cannot get blood out of a stone, and that if the householder cannot afford to fund this work they cannot be forced to.
AW have told me that the take-up for these kind of schemes is usually around 30% (as here), and that they prefer to have an income from waste water charges to help fund such work.
There are 175 dwellings in the area of this scheme, so let's keep the maths easy and call it 200. Let's also say that the average pipework cost (that the householder is expected to pay) is £3'000. That would make the addition cost, to AW, were it to do the job properly, of the order of £600'000.
Now, which of these two is likely to pay back faster, £3.4M and 30% takeup or £4M and 100% takeup?
I tend to share Smallholder's cynicism about the motive of AW, but it has to be tempered by the knowledge that it would not be AW who would be policing the possibly continuing pollution of the land and/or watercourses, it would be the BCKLWN who, as most people around here know, is about as effective as a one legged Man at an arse-kicking party.
If you are unhappy at the cost that you will incur in connecting to the AW system, but still wish to connect, why not write to the MD of AW, Peter Simpson, and complain to him personally.
Anglian House, Ambury Road, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. PE29 3NZ
Don't try to phone as you will end up in a call centre and anyway 0845 phone calls are not cheap because the operator, in this case AW, takes a share of the cost of them!
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