January 2018 COMMENT BMJ


BUILDERS MERCHANTS JOURNAL


And it rained, rained, rained...


I’m writing this listening to the rain pounding on the roof, the wind rat- tling the (thankfully double-glazed and


cosy) windows and watching the run-off water pouring off the drive and down the road.


Yet my BBC newsfeed tells me that my local water company, Southern Water has applied for a permit to top-up the water in one of the reservoirs near me, the one that supplies Hastings and many of the Medway Towns. Er, what? It’s chucking it down outside and yet you’re still want-ing to add more to Bewl Water because you don’t have enough?


We’ve talked a lot about this is- sue - the fact that we are getting more and more of the wet stuff in the wrong places at the wrong times.


One of the problems for the wa- ter companies is that the rain we get today isn’t what’s need-ed. It’s the rain we didn’t get last winter that’s causing the problems. The 2016-2017 winter season was not only relatively mild in most parts of the UK, it was also fairly dry. Another of the problems is gen- eral water management. Are the water companies as good as they


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should be at handling and storing the water when they get it? No. You’ve only got to see the num- ber of roadside torrents caused by burst water mains - old, poorly maintained water mains - to see that.


The companies themselves would, obviously, deny putting shareholders’ needs ahead of investment in maintenance, the cynics amongst us might see it differently.


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The Month What’s been happening in the last month.


News Extra: There are changes afoot at HMRC - and the Government wants your input.


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Are we as a nation so used to the idea of living in wet-and-windy old Britain that we see no reason to conserve or manage our wa- ter use? Yes. We think we get so much rain that water is a commod- ity that we don’t really value. We’ll pay silly money for water in a fan- cy bottle at the newsagents (don’t even get me started on the ethics of plastic bottles, that’s a rant for another day), yet happily use litres and litres washing out baked bean tins so they can be recycled. Water is a precious commodity that too many people in the rest  access to. When are we going to start managing it like the resource it is?


Fiona Russell-Horne Editor-in-Chief


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Comment and Opinion The latest from our guest columnists Predictions


What might happen in the roofing sector in 2018? .


League Tables Who sits where in the annual pin-up-and- keep tablw of the UK’s top merchants.


Merchant Focus Keyline is refocusing on its supply chain specialisms in the civils sector.


Rainwater management Can we cope with the increasing amounts of the wet stuff we’re getting?


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Transport & Logistics Insurance costs are on the rise.


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