Feargal Sharkey joins Ilkley Clean River group in calling for a referendum to bring the water industry into public ownership.
When Ilkley Clean River Group [ICRG] started out 6 years ago, they thought no one could have known how polluted our river was, or they would have done something about it. They soon found out how naïve this was. At the outset they were told nothing could be done for 15 years! This year they finally secured the infrastructure the town needs to ensure our river is not polluted from untreated sewage.
The effort to do this by local people was monumental, from a citizen science programme of testing over years, town meetings, securing Bathing Status, multiple meetings with the regulators (including the now infamous James Bevan), multiple trips to parliament to try and get political action, and lots of Freedom of Information and Environment Information Requests.
On route the group found that, as shown on Dirty Business, the problem at the heart of the pollution was privatisation. Ilkley Clean River Group founded The Sewage Campaign Network to bring local grassroots campaigners together, and The People's Commission on the Water Sector when they saw government was favouring shareholders and creditors over the public in developing water policy.
Prof Becky Malby from ICRG says:
"The infrastructure at Addingham and Ilkley will go live in May before Bathing Season which is fantastic, but is only giving us what is needed to maintain our sewage system, which we should have had without all the effort of the campaign.
"Ilkley Clean River Group are trying to find out the real cost of this as Yorkshire Water is reporting a cost of £60million which they say just can't be right - its far too much money when a whole sewage works in Denmark cost 27 million."
The Group are now calling on everyone in Ilkley and Addingham to support them by signing the petition for a referendum to bring water into public ownership so that at least the option of public ownership is debated and considered, using the group says, real facts not fiction.
[Ilkley Clean River Group]
Becky added:
"The People's Commission on the Water Sector found that water is cleaner, cheaper and fairer in public ownership but the government has just thrown the evidence in the bin."
The petition is about giving the public a choice and redressing the government and policy bias to those that financially benefit from privatisation. It opens up the debate about the public having a democratic say over water, Currently the public is locked out of any decision-making and the future of water.
Feargal Sharkey who visited Ilkley last year says:
“It's unforgivable how the government is ignoring the evidence and the public, and saying water must stay privatised despite its catastrophic, expensive failure. Privatisation has already diverted over £85 billion of billpayers' money to shareholders who added nothing but greed and financial engineering to what should be a water industry, not a cash machine. It's time the public had a say in this, not just the bond markets and financiers currently pulling the government's strings for their own ends, and that is why I am 100% behind this petition.”
The petition can be signed at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/762640, at 100,000 signatures, this petition will be considered for debate in Parliament.
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