On 2007-08-23 12:37:16 +0100, David Hansen
said:

On Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:44:10 +0100 someone who may be "Dave Baker"
wrote this:-

the water authorities in this country seem to be
totally unable to provide for uninterrupted supplies of the stuff in one of
the wettest countries on earth.

In this country Scottish Water, a QANGO, does a reasonable job
though a far from perfect one.

In other parts of the UK (excluding perhaps Northern Ireland) I
understand water supply is privatised. This was supposed to bring
thrusting, forward-looking, enterprise to replace the tired old men
of the public sector.

No matter what the ownership, the problem the organisations
concerned face is rising demand.

The problem is inadequate planning and provisioning. This is not a
demand issue.



More households, more appliances
in these households, more gadgets (how many people wash cars with a
bucket of water and cloth these days?). There is also great
reluctance to building more reservoirs from the landscape lobby.

That's OK as long as it's in parts of the country such as Scotland
where there is plenty of space and it blends in anyway.



The answer is to reduce demand,

No it isn't. That's the same silly argument as energy saving.
Completely unnecessary.

as well as reduce the amount of
water ****ing out of the pipes (a particular problem in the London
area I gather).

That should be done, and done by means of repair, not by reduction in pressure.



Water saving shower heads and the like are one
option which involve minimal adaption.

These are pointless. A good shower involves the delivery of a good
supply of water, not a needle jet tiddly electric-like thing.



Using rainwater for gardens
and washing cars is little more complicated.

Not really. It's entirely reasonable to water vegetables and fruits
at particular times.



Flushing toilets and
washing clothes with rainwater requires more thought, but can be
done.
Then there is full grey water recycling and composting
toilets.

These are largely nonsense. It may be just about acceptable to flush
toilets with rain water provided that it could be suitably filtered and
cleaned up. It certainly isn't for clothes unless it can be properly
cleaned and purified. It is more sensible to do this on an industrial
scale.