IN a recent issue of the Chronicle, Barnsley South MP, Stephanie Peacock, explained that the residents of our town are being grossly overcharged by Yorkshire Water. Furthermore, that same private company is to blame for poisoning our rivers, lakes and seas.

I’ve never kept a close eye on my water rates until recently, when I overheard a conversation.

“£520 a year I pay for my water rates,” complained the elderly woman in the queue outside Parkway cinema, “and I live in a two-bedroom terraced house.”

Her friend replied, “£520? Really? And I thought the £332 I pay for my one-bedroom old-folks bungalow was extortionate.”

As soon as I got home I checked my annual bill for my own one-bedroom semi-detached bungalow and got the shock of my life when I learned that it’s almost £680.

I spoke to my neighbour in the adjoining property and discovered her annual bill is £332 (same as the lady in the cinema queue). So I phoned Yorkshire Water to ask them to justify this huge anomaly. “We’ve double-checked your bill and it’s accurate, Mr Steele.”

“It can’t be. My bungalow is in the lowest council tax band.”

“Your water rates are not even based on your council tax band, Mr Steele, they’re based on the property’s rateable value. It’s a mistake customers often make.”

“Rateable value? What does that mean?”

“It’s complicated but it was established before 1990 and it cannot be changed.”

“Cannot be changed? Are you sure? What if a mistake was made and I’ve been paying over the odds for years? Can’t a wrong be put right?

“There is no mistake, Mr Steele, and the RV definitely cannot be changed, but I can explain the discrepancy between your bill and that of your next door neighbour. It’s simple: he or she must have had a water meter fitted.”

After finishing the telephone conversation I undertook a little research and discovered that smart water-meter technology has only recently become reliable.

Therefore, based on this and my personal experience I would strongly urge others to consider switching to a meter as soon as possible, if it benefits you. In 99 per cent of cases, installation is free and the waiting time is 90 days (although most are fitted within three weeks).

And if you find your water bill turns out to be higher than before, you have a legal right to change back to the old system, free of charge.

But it’ll take a lot more than the installation of a smart meter to fully satisfy me. Instead of just tinkering about at the edges of this fundamentally flawed system of water provision, I suggest something more drastic. As Miss Peacock says, the over-charging and general services provided by Yorkshire Water and other privately owned companies, are unacceptable.

They’re not just robbing us blind, they’re creaming off vast profits for their bosses and shareholders, whilst dumping toxic sewage in our waterways. In my view, rather than put up with this fiasco, the control of the nation’s water should be returned to public ownership and those water bosses, found responsible for poisoning the environment, should face long prison sentences for law-breaking.

“Ah, but ah,” the cynics will claim, “renationalising the water industry will cost the government billions of pounds in compensation that they can ill afford.” “This argument is a myth promulgated by the water companies themselves,” says Feargal Sharkey, the musician turned social campaigner. “And it’s used so that the unfettered exploitation of the British tax payer can continue unabated.” Neutral experts will tell you that the actual cost of renationalisation would be zero.

Why?

Because if the government forced water companies to declare the actual cost of fixing ALL their problems, none of them would be financially viable.

And as private water companies are NOT allowed to go into liquidation, all of their assets would automatically revert back to state ownership, free of charge. And while Labour rule the roost, it should also consider going even further by doing something about the many other failing services, especially public transport. Change is coming, but it will need a huge push from all of us to ensure the extortionists don’t continue getting away with daylight robbery.