Work on recent water leaks in West End Lane [Janet Grauberg]

WILL anyone heed the advice of Thames Water when the hosepipe ban comes into effect?

Despite last night’s downpour (Wednesday), our reservoirs yet to be sold-off by the company have run dry.

Next year’s drought is predicted to have a much more severe impact than this year.

And so we are invited to do our very best for the environment by diligently conserving water in our homes for the national good.

On the streets outside, however, profligacy reigns supreme.

Thames Water’s hosepipe ban small print reveals there are criminal offences for those that “repeatedly ignore requests to comply” with the hosepipe ban.

How about criminal offences for those who repeatedly ignore requests to comply with the very basic demand of fixing leaks on the same day that they are reported?

Public disorder convictions could be handed down if, for example, new pipes blow up within a year.

The prospect of adding a criminal record onto the CV of some of the company’s many seven-figure salary executives might actually spur them into action.

But of course there is never any comeuppance in the system of privatisation we have so wholeheartedly adopted in this country.

It is essentially a Faustian pact between politicians and money-chasing business people.

On the one hand, companies appear to operate in the public sphere without any real fear of meaningful punishment.

On the other hand, politicians can appear to care while staying out of the firing line by pointing blame away from them. In reality, they are all complicit.

The chief executive of Thames Water, Sarah Bentley, landed £2million in pay and bonuses last year. That’s far in excess of what the average working person can expect to earn in an entire life time.

This kind of salary is unimaginable to your average person, perhaps waiting for a bus that’s not coming because of water main burst road closure diversion.

The profits being made by water companies, which are in effect private monopolies, the dividend payments to shareholders, the inflated salaries and bonuses to the executives, and the debts racked up by these companies, mostly to support dividends and inflated salaries, rather than finance investment, is a clear sign this is a broken market in need of redress.

This country is an outlier on the world stage with fully privately owned and run water companies that are increasingly criticised for not investing in infrastructure.

Ministers are just looking the other way whilst this scandal happens.