MUA water meters

[Hoops]

On 7/4/2023 at 5:33 PM, Numbnuts said:

This …it winds me up every year when my rates bill comes through and they ask me for £274 for water rates and £250 for sewerage .There’s just me in a two bedroom flat and because of a general awareness of waste and gas and electric costs I don’t use much water. Re shower and bath .They’re ripping me off on sewerage charges too. Yet an identical flat as mine in same block has 2 adults and two kids paying the same. It’s just so wrong and before you say take someone in that’s just not feasible or practicable not least as am pushing 70 . 

Yeah, but the cost of physically getting the water to your flat is the same as to a flat with 4 people in it. So in terms of the bulk of the cost of water supply, getting it from a to b, per head you are 4x more expensive then the family down the corridor.

Bollocks of course, but lets not go down the route of families should pay more then single people, the fall in family sizes, the way people are holding from starting families, it's expensive enough as it is. If the government is sincere in it's wish to increase the population of the island with working people/families, not financially penalising them may be a help.

[Non-Believer]

8 hours ago, woolley said:

I appreciate it isn't as much as in the UK, but why should we be benchmarking our charges against theirs? They have shareholders to pay. Too much of copying practices from over there.

Convenient excuse when you've got huge public debt and PS wage and pension liabilities though.

[Happier diner]

11 hours ago, finlo said:

They must have been on the network previously no?

No. Like @Roger Mexico correctly says. There was no network connection other than to the local treatment works. The network is all treated water, you can send untreated water into it.

9 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

Many of the reservoirs are interconnected, the capacity exists to transfer water from one to another and it does already happen  to augment water supplies to the more heavily drawn on reservoirs.

As above, but just reiterating @Roger Mexico s wise words. The other reservoirs are tiny and would add up to about a weeks worth. Baldwin and especially Sulby are massive. Previous generations planned well. We have loads of water, all we need to do is use it sensibly, especially if we get 3 months without proper rain.

[Ringy Rose]

15 hours ago, woolley said:

It really is compared to what it used to be.

Well yes, but that’s the cost of Meary Veg, which needed doing. Which ties in with the other issue here, which is that infrastructure costs are always higher per person where there’s a low population density.

It’s also why water meters are really about revenue raising. The bulk of the cost of water and sewerage supply is the infrastructure costs, and that infrastructure costs the same regardless of how much you use.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Ringy Rose

[Happier diner]

2 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

Well yes, but that’s the cost of Meary Veg, which needed doing. Which ties in with the other issue here, which is that infrastructure costs are always higher per person where there’s a low population density.

It’s also why water meters are really about revenue raising. The bulk of the cost of water and sewerage supply is the infrastructure costs, and that infrastructure costs the same regardless of how much you use.

What you are saying in your first paragraph is true. However your second paragraph makes no sense at all. You can only assess whether water meters are about revenue raising or not unless you see a tariff. Without a tariff you have no idea. 

As I see it the MUA has a the benefit of a very good income stream from water rates. What's in it for them to offer a meter tariff that might lower their total revenue. 

Too much cynicism and guesswork going on here. 

[WTF]

14 hours ago, Happier diner said:

. However your second paragraph makes no sense at all. You can only assess whether water meters are about revenue raising or not unless you see a tariff. Without a tariff you have no idea. 

 

a few years ago where i live didn't have a water meter with water rates included in the general rates bill .  a water meter was fitted ( not our idea ), the general rates went down a bit but the water aspect doubled making the grand total increase by hundreds of pounds a year when you added the 2 together,  meters = revenue increase, you can bet nobodies unmetered water rates went down cos we'd been charged more.

[Happier diner]

12 minutes ago, WTF said:

a few years ago where i live didn't have a water meter with water rates included in the general rates bill .  a water meter was fitted ( not our idea ), the general rates went down a bit but the water aspect doubled making the grand total increase by hundreds of pounds a year when you added the 2 together,  meters = revenue increase, you can bet nobodies unmetered water rates went down cos we'd been charged more.

I understand that. Like I said though, It depends on the tariff and what you pay in rates. Also depends if they make it compulsory or not. If it's voluntary then you can pick and choose.

[Dirty Buggane]

On 7/1/2023 at 1:34 PM, Banker said:

https://gef.im/news/politics/manx-utilities-considering-compulsory-water-meters-36738/

You have as much choice as the smart meters.

[Happier diner]

4 minutes ago, Dirty Buggane said:

You have as much choice as the smart meters.

Smart meters don't effect how much you pay. 

[Roger Mexico]

Water meters are always going to be revenue-raising unless they replace an even more expensive way of assessing and collecting charges.  Simply because the meters and their fitting, maintenance, monitoring, administering, checking, upgrading and replacement will cost money that otherwise wouldn't be spent and will have to be reclaimed from customers.  Basing charges on a rates system already used for other things is about the cheapest option you can get.

The main reason for fitting such meters ought to be for reducing usage.  But that simply isn't a problem here - even long hot summers only require minor measures, such as hosepipe bans.  Most global warming predictions imply an increase in rainfall for the Island.  Climate change mitigation (such as restoring peat bogs and forest) would also help with water conservation over time.

The only reasons for this proposal are civil service empire building and an inability to do anything except what the current fashion is in England.

[Roger Mexico]

7 minutes ago, Happier diner said:

Smart meters don't effect how much you pay. 

They do.  The £20 million they cost has to come from somewhere.  Whether there will be savings off that by getting rid of meter readers etc is something else, but I doubt much of an assessment was done to see overall cost or we would have been told about it.  As usual the project was justified by there being no alternative - the only sort of choice our political representatives like.

[Two-lane]

32 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

They do.  The £20 million they cost has to come from somewhere. 

In an interview with Moulton, Allinson said it would not cost the consumer because MUA would "pick up the tab". Allinson is the treasury minister now. He knows about money.

[Non-Believer]

38 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

The only reasons for this proposal are civil service empire building and an inability to do anything except what the current fashion is in England.

And revenue raising to ensure that the over-generous legacy terms and conditions for that group of people remain funded and unscathed.

No-one, but no-one, would ever see a drop in what they're paying for water, even if it was a "fairer means of assessment". But a lot of people would still end up paying a lot more. And a lot of that revenue won't be going anywhere near water infrastructure.

Look at the newly reinstated Treasury annual clawbacks from the PO, the DOI and the Steamy alone for all the evidence.

[Gladys]

41 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

In an interview with Moulton, Allinson said it would not cost the consumer because MUA would "pick up the tab". Allinson is the treasury minister now. He knows about money.

And where does the MUA get its money?

 

(Unless you were being ironic.)

[Happier diner]

38 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

And revenue raising to ensure that the over-generous legacy terms and conditions for that group of people remain funded and unscathed.

No-one, but no-one, would ever see a drop in what they're paying for water, even if it was a "fairer means of assessment". But a lot of people would still end up paying a lot more. And a lot of that revenue won't be going anywhere near water infrastructure.

Look at the newly reinstated Treasury annual clawbacks from the PO, the DOI and the Steamy alone for all the evidence.

How do you know that? There is no tariff.