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Water privatization:
Water privatisation refers to the transfer of ownership of water resources from the public sector to the private sector. Globally, over two-thirds of water and sanitation systems are publicly owned, but in an increasingly capitalistic world, privatisation is becoming ever more common. Focusing on England and Wales this essay will discuss the reasons for, and consequences of, water privatisation and examine the desirability of combined private/public management. The UK is the only country that has ‘completely privatised its water supply and sewerage systems through asset sales, floating previously publicly owned utilities on the stock exchange with infrastructure, property, and water supply and sanitation networks intact’. Over the last two decades, the UK water industry has changed from the ‘supply of a service to citizens at subsidized rates, towards the sale of a commodity to consumers on a full cost-recovery basis’.
In the early 19th century water resources were predominantly the responsibility of private businesses. Provision was socially and spatially varied and many towns were even without mains networks. Leeds & Liverpool were unique examples in that they each maintained public/private ownership, with the public part acting as a regulator, a concept which formed the basis for the part-nationalisation legislation in the 1840’s. Regardless of the nature of the ownership, or perhaps as a result of the ownership, water supplies and waste management in the 19th century were often overstretched, unreliable and of inferior quality, a fact highlighted by the cholera epidemics in 1831, 1848, 1854 and 1866. By the start of the 20th century water resources were largely under public control with ‘centralised wastewater management’ and there had been vast improvements in water quality and sanitation.
The 1973 Water Act reorganised the water industry by removing it from local authority control, and establishing ten state-owned Regional Water...
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