Letter: Water charges

Last winter Scottish Water staff and facilities were overstretched by thousands of calls from customers facing a failure of strategic and domestic water supply infrastructure to withstand winter conditions that, though severe, did not reach the record cold levels of 1982 or 1995.

Some customers in my home village had no water for six weeks due to mains and/or service pipes, in a newly installed system, being buried insufficiently deeply to resist frost penetration.

All over Scotland thousands of customers faced similar misery. The fact that Scottish Water had to set up emergency call centres in other parts of the UK and distribute bottled water in huge quantities is testament to the extra demands made on staff resources at that time. However, this situation is not fully resolved. Even now staff are dealing with problems created by failed or inadequate infrastructure installation all over the country.

The cause of this largely stems from a decision of senior Scottish Water management not to carry out direct supervision of sub-contractors engaged in installation or upgrade of water supply infrastructure, especially in regard to technical quality and depth of burial.

The result is going to be a further huge expenditure that could have been avoided if the work had been carried out properly in the first place. It is shameful that these people have received some of the largest salaries and bonuses in the public sector when their junior staff and customers have suffered at their hands.

It is a shame perhaps only equalled by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance signing off their pay cheques in the knowledge of what had gone on in his own constituency.

Ron Greer

Blair Atholl

Perthshire