Severn Trent have the following on their website :

“Why will water bills go up for everyone and not just the people who are having their sewers adopted?

Water companies already maintain all shared pipes (sewers) for properties built before 1937. Therefore all our customers currently contribute to the cost of us providing the service to customers who have older houses. The transfer makes the situation fairer for all, so that all customers benefit from us maintaining shared pipes (sewers), irrespective of the age of the property. Any property that is connected to the sewerage system pays a share of the cost of operating and maintaining the whole system. Therefore, as the costs of maintaining the system will increase, the costs are shared out across all customers.”

This does not answer the question. It is deliberately misleading and designed to confuse consumers. It contains empirical falsehoods :

“The transfer makes the situation fairer for all, so that all customers benefit from us maintaining shared pipes (sewers)” empirically false.

There is no benefit to customers without shared pipes of other customers with shared pipes having coverage.  In fact it may force up the insurance required to cover these pipes as we will be a disadvantaged minority.

My House was built prior to 1937 and it has no shared sewer.  I paid to repair our sewer so I happen to know how our sewers work, but how many people do?  I receive no benefit from this change and am apparently expected to subsidise others problems.  This is not fair and does not treat all customers equally, only those with shared sewers.  So it appears a minority is being forced to subsidise the majority.

The above seems to deliberately avoid answering the Frequently Asked Question, it is misleading and insulting to consumers.  Can you please get them answer the answer the question without resorting to obfuscation and lies.

I would also like to know why I am expected to pay anything for a service I am NOT receiving. Severn Trent is a private limited company and it strikes me as morally dubious to charge a customer for a service they do not receive or benefit from.  This may have been acceptable when an industry is nationalised when the “national good” can be quoted, but what is the legal basis for a private company using its monopoly position to charge all customers for a service that only benefits some customers?  This is particularly onerous as it appears the minority will be subsidising the majority rather than the majority subsidising the minority.

Nigel.

I have just received a letter on sewer ownership which appears to state that my bill will increase between £3 and £14 so as to subsidise homes with shared sewage and make disputes easier for these homeowners.  It may be unusual but I know the arrangement of my sewer as I had to pay to have it repaired purely because our house does not share the sewer pipe with anyone else (so the entire responsibility was ours).  From your letter it appears I will retain responsibility for our sewer pipe but have our bill increase? Can you please elaborate, is this a matter of your records being wrong or are you genuinely going to force a minority to pay for the majorities problems?

Regards,
Nigel

Pop this in your wpcontent\themes\elegant-box in a file called nosidebar.php and you will be able to alter your forums post accordingly

<?php
/*
Template Name: No Side Bar
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<style>
#main {
    width:940px;
    float:left;
    padding:10px 15px 0;
    overflow:hidden;
}
#content {
    background: #FAF6F0;
    border: 1px solid #A07828;
}
</style>
        <?php if (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
            <div width="100%">
                <div>
                    <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
                    <div></div>
                </div>
                <div>
                    <?php edit_post_link(__('Edit', 'elegantbox'), '<span>', '</span>'); ?>
                    <span><?php _e('Update: ', 'elegantbox'); the_modified_time(__('F jS, Y', 'elegantbox')) ?></span>
                </div>
                <div>
                    <?php the_content(); ?>
                </div>
            </div>
        <?php endif; ?>
    </div>
    <div></div>
        <div id="bottom">
<?php get_footer(); ?>

I am aware overwriting the thee in that manner is not exactly elegant, but it gets the job done in a single file so works for me.

This site is now used as my blog site, I self host it in order to help better understand administrating a wordpress site so as to support the xeis.net clients who choose to use this technology, so unfortunately if one of these users were genuine I can only apologise for deleting you.

Last Shuttle Flight

Manned space flight has been consigned to the Chinese and Indians to look at, presumably on the understanding that the Americans will be able to buy or steal the plans once the investment has been made.  Meanwhile the American tax payer will be asked to fund private “space” exploration with both military backing and more directly through federal taxation, because even the most naive politician realises that you must give the proles hope to hang their hats upon.

Congratulations to the Russian rocket scientists, it was a long fight, and after your early lead it really looked like the Americans had you beaten.  your engines were always superior, but the Americans had belief, bravery and a true visionary which looked like it had you beat.  But at the end if the day, the immortal giants who lobbied for protection under the constitution were always going kill anything that their greedy eyes saw as competition.

The butterfly farm was a lot of fun, but it was smaller than the 3 hours that we had available3 to go around, so we got ice cream (as you can see, James was very impressed) and went and found a Mini Golf game, where James got his first whole in one and we had a great laugh (although I forgot to take pictures).

This morning was no exception and Sandwell council are looking to investigate this mess :

Discarded rubbish bags on Valley Road beside Min Du

The picture does not really show how the mess was strewn allover Valley Road, but these are the limitations if iPhones in the rain.

So while the litter was spread all over the street, Counciler Anne Shackleton did raise it with the Head of Refuse in order to enquire if there should be a hopper bin. hopefully this will prevent the kids from timber tree school having to wade through quitenso much rubbish on the way to school eh?