How Did South East Water Become Such A Disaster?
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
As tens of thousands of homes in Kent and Sussex lose supply the company and its well-remunerated boss, David Hinton, face a torrent of anger
These two paragraphs add some detail.
Perhaps the worst moment for South East Water was when it opened a bottled water station in the wrong town. Staff set up in Tonbridge, Kent, and not Tunbridge Wells five miles away, where the company had left some 24,000 properties without drinking water for two weeks.
Or maybe it was when David Hinton, the chief executive, repeatedly called the local MP one evening not to apologise but to berate him about the crisis — not, Hinton later admitted, “my finest moment”. Or it could have been when more properties lost their supply only hours after Hinton had told MPs his company’s response to the incident should score eight out of ten.
It wasn’t exactly the water industry’s finest moment.
I played a small and hopefully professional and a hundred-percent scientifically correct manner in the formation of the modern water industry in the UK.
In the 1970s, I wrote the software, that WS Atkins rented from their time-sharing computer to the Water Resources Board at Reading to model water supply in all or part of the UK.
My differential equation solving software had been designed to handle up to around a million equations and the contact at the WRB was a Dr. David Dimeloe.
I was never given details of their model and the conclusions, but I assume they must have done a good job, as there haven’t been too many problems with actual water supply, but mainly with management, ownership and failure of ancient infrastructure.
In my 79 years in the UK, I’ve never had a problem with water supply.
Searching for the WRB on the Internet finds one in Sri Lanka.
It would be good to get a copy of that report or even talk to one of the engineers on the project.
Legal Challenge Against Gatwick Airport’s Second Runway To Begin
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on ITVX.
These four paragraphs add more details.
Plans to challenge a second runway at Gatwick Airport will be heard in the High Court next week.
The campaign and environmental group Communities Against Gatwick Noise Emissions (CAGNE) opposes Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander’s decision to grant development consent for the project.
In the hearing, which will run from 20 to 23 January 2026, CAGNE’s argues that the climate change impacts of the extra runway have not been properly assessed.
The planned expansion would see the repurposing of Gatwick Airport’s emergency runway for use as a second operational runway. The extra capacity is expected to lead to more than 100,000 more flights per year.
These two paragraphs give CAGNE’s case.
CAGNE says that this decision was flawed, arguing that there are numerous gaps in the environmental assessment of the airport expansion. These include a failure to adequately assess inbound flight emissions, the climate impact of non-carbon dioxide emissions, the handling of additional sewage, and noise pollution.
The group also argues that the second runway plans rely too heavily on the UK’s Jet Zero Strategy (JZS), which assumes ambitious improvements in the aviation industry in areas such as fuel efficiency.
My feelings are as follows.
- We need more runway capacity.
- Eventually all aircraft will be powered by electricity, hydrogen or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
- Because of the need for large amounts of renewable electricity to make hydrogen and SAF, the runway will need to be near offshore wind farms.
Only Doncaster Sheffield, Gatwick, Liverpool, Stansted and some Scottish airports are near the sea or could be connected to the coast by an easy-to-build cable or pipeline.
CAGNE may well win their case, but I fell Nimbys will also stop Heathrow getting a third runway.
US Federal Court Clears Revolution Wind To Resume Construction As Ørsted, Skyborn’s Lawsuit Against Stop-Work Orders Progresses
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
The US District Court for the District of Columbia has granted the preliminary injunction sought by the joint venture between Ørsted and Skyborn Renewables for the Revolution Wind project, which was ordered to pause construction by the US government. When the stop-work order was issued on 22 December 2025, the 704 MW project had seven wind turbines left to install.
This paragraph adds more detail.
The underlying lawsuit that the Revolution Wind joint venture filed against the first stop-work order issued for the offshore wind farm on 22 August 2025, which was supplemented to also challenge the 22 December 2025 order, continues to progress in the court, while the preliminary injunction will allow the construction activities to restart immediately.
Note.
- Ørsted said on the 12th January 2026, that they would resume work as soon as practically possible.
- Ørsted have also said that the project is approximately 87 per cent complete and was expected to begin generating power this month.
- In New York Attorney General Files Lawsuits Against Trump Admin’s Stop-Work Orders For Empire Wind, Sunrise Wind, Trump is also facing a second legal action over offshore wind.
It does seem that we are seeing what happens, when the irresistible force that is Trump meets the immovable force, that is United States law.
The Anonymous Widower 