The sad truth is that the key to cleaning up the Ouseburn, the stream that runs beneath the City Stadium (a.k.a. Battlefield) lies out side the reach of either the Newly formed Ouseburn group or the City Council. Investors in Northumbrian Water plc, a foreign owned company, expect a return on their cash and if that means this insignificant (to them at least) waterway is regularly flushed with raw sewage, so? Any fine issued by Ofwat, the official industry 'watchdog', if it materialised, would be relatively small, a mere 'cost of doing business', compared to the very large sums required re-engineer sewage disposal, sums that would impact dividends. You do know how this works, don't you?
The Guardian columnist George Monbiot explains.
I sincerely hope the new Ouseburn Initiative group inspired by the Reece Foundation achieves much. However, the insuperable obstacle will be how to enforce the one thing that would make a crucial difference: Water quality. Re-Nationalisation of the water companies – who have squeezed thousands of millions out of the consumer for less than stellar performance over pollution and systemic leaks – would seem to be the only real option.
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