| Topic: | Re:Re:Another Thames Water blunder or just plain arrogance? | |
| Posted by: | Steve Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 11/06/06 22:26:00 |
| Its not so much ignorance as complacency or acceptance of mediocrity. It is a fact that Isleworth stinks of sewage and it is a fact that well over a thousand residents are taking legal action. Interestingly many of those people have moved from the area because of the stench but are claiming compensation because they had to drop their house price in order to sell or they sold because they simply weren't prepared to put up with it anymore. It is also interesting that the majority of the people taking legal action are relative 'newcomers' to the region. Why did they come to the area knowing that there was a Sewage Treatment Works in the area? Very simply because no doubt when they bought they weren't told by the vendor that there was a problem (I certainly wasn't) and also because this is after all the 21st century and we are in a first world country in a capital city. No other first world country would expect its residents to suffer the blight inflicted upon residents by Thames Water. Australia for example has specific laws which dictate exclusion zones for dwellings around STW's. Singapore too has zones which may not be developed unless the site is totally covered. Mogden is unique and should not have been allowed to expand and get out of control as it has. Whilst long standing residents may have simply shrugged off the problem for years and accepted that Thames Water can make billions of profit whilst operating an environmental disaster area, others are not prepared to do so. Most people I have spoken to didn't in their wildest dreams expect that the Local Authority would have allowed Thames Water to operate as it does and nobody expected the that the area would have been allowed to decay to such third world conditions. One also has to consider that many taking legal action are in council or housing association properties. They don't exactly have the freedom of choice as many other may. "Consider that every time you can smell sewage it is in fact a molecule of human excrement which has found its way up your nose and through to the back of your mouth and come to rest on your tongue - that's why you can also taste it - you are in fact eating it" - Environmental Scientist - No, it won't kill you but its charming isn't it? |