Troubled water

The year 1976 rises like a spectre whenever the sun shines for more than a few days. That long, dry, hot summer has become a regular reference point for people in their late forties and over searching for happy memories of childhood or young adulthood. Those too young to remember it will nevertheless be familiar with photographs of people dipping in the fountains in Trafalgar Square, walking alongside dried-up reservoirs or showing a ‘Blitz spirit’ as they filled buckets from standpipes in the streets.

Yet rarely does anyone see the summer of 1976 in a clear light: as a time when our then state-owned water industry failed to cope with adversity. We hear plenty of criticism from the left about the privatised water industry we have now, which Jeremy Corbyn has promised to renationalise. Water companies stand accused of frittering their money on dividends rather than investing it in infrastructure. But the evidence points the other way — we are more resilient to drought now than when we were reliant on public-owned regional water authorities.