St Ives MP Andrew George has hosted a public meeting at Cripplesease to address recent water outages and loss of pressure in that and other nearby villages.
The packed meeting at the Engine Inn
The MP was joined at a well attended meeting in the Engine Inn by South West Water (SWW) managers.
“The only problem,” said Mr George, “was that the officials sent were local technicians who were able to describe the problems they had to deal with and a public relations guy who was presumably there to do what public relations guys do — use the best language and artifice of sympathy to place a gloss over a shamefully inadequate service.”
Some at the meeting reported more than 150 occasions when they’ve lost water, being without water for four days, sometimes longer. In other instances:
- a business with more than 300 guests was without water during a busy and very hot bank holiday weekend;
- a school head who had to take the precautionary measure of arriving at the school before 6am each morning in case the water supply had again failed and the school had to be closed or alternative arrangements made.
“One business explained to me that they pay SWW over £5,000 per annum for a service which they don’t get, and will withhold payments until they do,” said Mr George.
“None criticised the frontline SWW staff, who were always polite and sympathetic when telephoned, nor the service engineers who attended the meeting to explain how the system is supposed to work, and how difficult it is with the capacity they have to work with.”
The meeting was attended by residents “from Nancledra, Towednack, Georgia, Carbis Bay, Halsetown, Castle Gate, and surrounding areas. They learned that these places are all served from the Steeple pumping station, “which clearly has capacity problems”, said the MP. Some of those who’ve experienced continuous outages have been offered derisory compensation.
“It was a packed meeting,” said Mr George. “We were polite and grateful to the SWW staff who attended, but I assured those who attended that we’d need to review the situation after the summer season, and that next time we need the SWW chief exec and/or senior exec who can address the investment questions which could not be answered.
“Thank you to the many who came and spoke about their experiences, and to Engine Inn proprietors Claire and Darren Biggs for hosting us.”
