WATER CONSUMPTION

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26031, 7 February 1950, Page 8

WATER CONSUMPTION

Sir, —Why does, not the City Council send its inspectors after the hundreds of men who steal water (mostly tenants in old houses, who never pay one penny tax), preferably on Saturday afternoon and Sunday mornings, when there is no chance of an inspector being about? The inspectors harass the milkman on these days, but the council does not lose one penny over the cream wrongfully supplied. I know several in our little street without meters, who must have stolen hundreds of pounds’ worth of water during the last few years, and should have been fined heavily long ago. I have a meter, but can seldom use it, as last year my excess water rate was very high. My garden dries up while theirs flourish. I have seen hose on at top when it is raining. The inspectors should make a shed-to-shed inspection, and where a hose is found a meter should be installed immediately.—Yours, etc., ST. ALBANS S.W. February 3, 1950.

Sir,—l was most interested in the remarks of the chairman of the water committee that he would put a meter in any place where it was reported there was not one. I always understood a meter was put in when a new house was connected up with water, except for the war years. The .chairman could easily check up on these meterless houses, for there must be a great many. He will realise just how one with one eye on a drying garden and the other on an extra water account views with a little envy the ones who can, without heed of cost, refresh their gardens almost daily with copious supplies of water.—Yours, etc., OBSERVER. January 31, 1950. [“lt has always been the policy of the council to install water meters on connexions to residential properties where water is used for other than purely domestic purposes. During the war years inability to obtain meters made it impossible to install them, but those properties where meters were not installed are being metered as the meters become available,” said the Town Clerk (Mr H. S. Feast) when asked to comment on these letters.]