Government has neither the money nor the capacity to run our water industry and nationalisation would be the surest way to stop investment in it. Only the private sector has deep enough pockets to fund that level of investment, says Natascha Engel

People across Kent and Sussex have had to use their neighbour’s toilets and wash their children with bottled water, as more than 30,000 homes spent up to six days without water this week. It comes just weeks after a water treatment centre was forced to shut down. Leaving tens of thousands of homes in Tunbridge Wells without water for 14 days.

It’s a nightmare for residents, but also a disaster for South East Water, whose chief executive is now facing calls to resign amid accusations of failing to maintain ageing infrastructure.

Bashing the water industry, its executives and owners might be therapeutic, but it does nothing to solve the problems faced by an industry that supplies us with one of life’s most essential commodities. Without it, schools and hospitals remain closed and at worst, people die.

We urgently need more investment in our........

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