Watching ITV News last night, they showed frightening pictures of the Weirwood Reservoir at a shockingly low level. Over twelve feet lower than it should be, in fact.

The upshot of the news story Millions of homes face higher water rates and meters is that water meters are to be forced to have water meters.

Below is a picture taken in May 2005 - is’s easy to see how low the water is - it’s worse now but I can’t find a more current photo.

With all the planned housing boom (can you have a planned boom? I thought the whole idea of a boom was that it was unexpected!) in the South, if they can’t already sustain the levels of water needed how are they going to cope with all the thousands of new houses planned? It’s easy to imply the South’s existing householders are wasteful with their water usage, but the truth seems to me to lie with over expansion being the culprit. So why are there so many more houses planned? Why are there no new reservoirs planned? The planned boom is going to be on arid land, it seems.

I pertso9nally have no qualms whatsoever about having a water meter installed - BUT will it solve the problem? Of course not. Only an idiot with their head stuck up their reservoir would think so.

The planned boom needs a serious rethink and some proper planning - not stopgap management with no real resources integrated.