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Public Health

8 articles

When Failure Pays: The Water Industry's Reward System

• via BBC News

When Failure Pays: The Water Industry's Reward System

How privatized water companies in England profit from underinvestment and rising bills

Five English water companies have successfully argued for higher bills to cover infrastructure failures they were supposed to maintain. The Competition and Markets Authority approved an additional £556 million in charges, on top of already planned 36% increases over five years. This comes as serious pollution incidents by water firms jumped 60% in a single year, highlighting a troubling pattern of privatized monopolies profiting from public goods while failing to deliver essential services.

Twenty Years of Warnings, Zero Years of Action: How Britain's Housing Crisis Became a Climate Catastrophe

• via The Guardian

Twenty Years of Warnings, Zero Years of Action: How Britain's Housing Crisis Became a Climate Catastrophe

The heatwaves are here to stay, and so are the consequences of our inaction.

While ministers debate subsidizing air conditioning in 2025, the UK housing stock remains fundamentally unfit for the climate conditions we've already experienced. The 40°C temperatures that struck in 2022 weren't a distant possibility requiring decades of preparation—they were the arrival of a predicted reality that successive governments chose to ignore.

The Sewage State: How England's Water Crisis Exposes Total Institutional Collapse

• via The Guardian

The Sewage State: How England's Water Crisis Exposes Total Institutional Collapse

The UK's water crisis is a textbook case of how privatized monopolies plunder public goods

English water companies dumped raw sewage into rivers and seas at record-breaking levels in 2024, with serious pollution incidents surging 60% in a single year. While politicians promised a crackdown on water pollution, the reality is stark: 75 serious incidents poisoned waterways last year, up from 47 in 2023.