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Hi Jim, - I have just seen your web page about Meanwood Beck. You are right to give a lot of credit to campaign groups such as COMB and EYE on the Aire (+ a number of others) for the recent sewerage scheme. You are wrong however to place such faith in Yorkshire Water compared with public authorities.

As a matter of fact, sewerage services were not transferred to Yorkshire Water in 1988. They were transferred in 1974, as a result of the Water Act 1973. The City Council's Main Drainage Division continued to design, construct and maintain the sewerage system (including sewers, overflows, pumping stations, etc)- as the agent of Yorkshire Water - but Yorkshire Water held the purse strings and made all the decisions. In the late 1990's, Yorkshire Water terminated the agency arrangements with all Councils, but left the design and construction role with Leeds CC (on a Consultancy basis). In October 2000 this consultancy role was ended by Yorkshire Water, as they gave all the work instead to (non-local) consortia of Consultants and Contractors. In the course of these organisational changes - cutting the Council out of the equation - Yorkshire Water has squandered a huge amount of local knowledge and expertise.

Following privatisation in 1989 it became far harder for Leeds CC engineers to persuade Yorkshire Water to promote any scheme which was not absolutely legally obligatory. Prior to this Leeds CC and then Yorkshire Water had been prepared to think strategically about sewerage problems and design for the future. After privatisation Yorkshire Water refused to take account of any problems except those which might cause them to suffer legal action, reduced funding level agreements from OFWAT, or reduced share prices. The Council engineers had been arguing for a long time that major capital works ought to be carried out to improve the condition of Meanwood Beck. Fortunately, Yorkshire Water had to report complaints to OFWAT and therefore could not afford to ignore the building pressure from individual complainants and campaign groups.

The eventual scheme which did get constructed fell a long way short of the measures which the Council engineers were arguing for. If the exhortations of Council engineers had been heeded, there would be no combined sewage overflows going into the beck upstream of the park. The scheme was, nevertheless, a major scheme by any standards. Even so, during the year that it was built, the amount of money spent on all sewerage schemes and sewage treatment in Leeds by Yorkshire Water, was only a small fraction of what they were collecting from Leeds citizens in Sewerage rate. What would the crayfish think about that?!

I cannot comment on your analysis of the fuel spillage, but I ought to know the truth about the sewerage story. I was in charge of the Leeds CC Main Drainage team which produced the Drainage Area Study (including sewer network computer models) upon which the project was based and justified. I also was in charge of the team of engineers who designed the scheme and supervised its construction. The most consistent set of people supporting the case of the campaigners was the Council's Main Drainage Engineers, supported also by Councillors for the area and EA officers.

Regards,

iGreen comment

It's good to hear from the other side, and I am glad that Mr Sellars accepts the iGreen claim that rivers like Meanwood beck became cleaner when responsibility for sewage treatment passed from council to private control.  The relevant time point is when Yorkshire Water was privatised in 1988, not when responsibility moved to the nationalised Yorkshire Water in 1974.

Mr Sellars' third and fourth paragraphs also support our argument.  No one doubts that the council engineers had been talking about a sewage treatment plant for years.  Talking is what council workers do best!   Nor should we be surprised that the plant that Yorkshire Water eventually installed fell short of what they had been talking about.  Talk is cheap!   The point is that the privatised Yorkshire Water installed a sewage treatment plant when the council just talked about it.  

Mr. Sellars is also correct that it is threat of legal action, reduced funding from OFWAT and a reduced share price that makes Yorkshire Water do these good things.   That is the point.  These pressures really hurt a private company.  They don't worry councillors unless they affect an election result.  They have no influence at all on council employees who know the council will almost never sack them.

The crayfish probably find it difficult to judge what proportion of the sewage rate should be spent on sewage treatment.  I certainly do. However, I bet they are glad that Yorkshire Water was privatised!

Jim Thornton 23 March 2002

click here to read the original iGreen paper on Meanwood beck

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Last modified: November 12, 2006