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This water monopoly simply stinks
• CONGRATULATIONS to the Tribune for actually getting a reply from Thames Water about the Big Stink in Barnsbury Street and surrounding area (Rose-scented streets? Critics say idea stinks, September 14).
I have tried to get a response from them twice by letter and once by personal contact without absolutely any reply whatsoever.
Others I know have had the same experience. So for the Thames Water spokeswoman to say they have only had one complaint is ridiculous.
The reality is that as a monopoly they can ignore customer complaints at will. The stink is getting much worse. I wonder how long it will take to get some action. I hope the Tribune can keep up the pressure.
CHRIS BULFORD
College Cross, N1
• THAMES Water is being somewhat economical with the truth in saying it “knew nothing” about the Big Stink problem. In March the Guardian reported: “A new £2billion ‘super sewer’ intended to stop the 2012 London Olympics site being swamped by untreated sewage was today given the go-ahead by the government.”
It is inconceivable that Thames Water has not examined the London sewage system as a whole. If it hasn’t, it demonstrates downright negligence. This city is undergoing such redevelopment that the infrastructure would have already collapsed if Thames Water “did not know anything about it”.
Residents have been complaining to Islington Council for years about the problem, not realising, or being told, that Thames Water is the responsible authority.
The council has a duty to protect public health, doesn’t it? Do staff see their jobs through rose-tinted glasses, getting paid for doing nothing about problems that have been reported to them.
Surely, it is their job to liaise with Thames Water about the drains as a public health matter. Isn’t that why we pay extortionate council taxes? Not for them to watch us do their job for them? Pay us back then!
I cannot believe the “doublespeak” that comes from various services, public and private, about these kinds of problems. What rosy world do they think they live in? It is certainly a different one from the more difficult one they expect their residents to live in.
I am sure readers would agree that the way this matter of the drains has been dealt with reflects the pass-the-buck mentality that afflicts Islington council officers about what their duties actually are.
It ends up with them doing nothing about anything. Talk about bureaucratic bungling!
SHEILA TREPOVSKA
N1
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