Water, Water Everywhere water - ' free and for everyone '. That's an attitude which has taken a severe hammering lately. Water rates have doubled in some areas in the past year and the new separate bills have made the public aware, possibly for the hrst time, that water costs money - our money, and on a national scale, lots of it. Kielder Reservoir, for example, the largest scheme in Europe. will add at least £130-million to Northumbrian water bill; the proposed Roadford Reservoir in Devon, a mere £50-million. Both will drown a fast-declining asset In Britain, agricultural land. In this, the first of a weekly series of investigative documentaries, Roger Cook asks, do we really need all this water, and are the authorities accountable to us and to their critics who claim that economy and good management could dispense with the need for
20 Roadfords or two ' Kielders ' by the year 2000?
Research by DEBBIE CHRISTIE Producer RITCHIE COGAN long wave only