“Enough is enough”: Campaigners call on housing developers to reopen community cycling path after a 6-month closure turns into 3 years

With the old route I hope they bigger it up also!  Sadly they'll probably do that but with a vowel change.

Indeed and a thumbs-up.  BUT ...

a) Of course it's only needed because roads.  This shouldn't be seen as "what a great bonus"!  It should be part of the fundamental requirements when building busy roads.  (And Glasgow should recognise the need to reverse damage done by their experiment with urban freeways...)  Especially around urban areas they may disconnect nearby places for active travel as much as they connect more distant places for drivers.  Acceptable mitigation must be better than "a concrete trench in the sky every couple of miles".
b) As "usual for UK" we have "just let them share the space".  It likely won't be a problem - at least initially - but why can't we understand that different modes work best when they have their own clearly marked space?

Who does the land belong to though?

Interesting question, and as they say 'possession is 9/10ths of the law'.  If they hold it in a particular state for long enough (ISTR 10 years) without any acion being taken then basically they can claim it as theirs.

This is definitely a case that the campaigners need to keep an eye on.

I wonder if the right to roam people have an interest too.

There's a section of footpath near me on the Cleveland Way https://maps.app.goo.gl/TRwSXWRq5EfAutPq7 that's been closed off since 2021, not scheduled to re-open until 2027 (maybe sooner if the housing estate is completed earlier).  I don't think it will ever re-open looking at the current layout of the site.

You should just make use of the market and vote with your wallet for the kind of capitalism you want!

Many people are unhappy with the current state of affairs. Is it fair to say generally people either think less capitalism (more regulation) OR more capitalism (less regulation) will fix it?

Problems immediately appear with any "get rid of" proposal. First "nature abhors a vacuum" - unfortunately for anarchists. Assume then that "something" will replace it. Not only does a replacement system have to have the attributes you want (or lack those you don't). It has to be self-organising eg. reinforce / propagate itself - which people often see as an anti-feature. Then ... it also has to be *better* at doing that than the (previous capitalist) system!

Reminds me of the comment about democratic government being a flawed system and only better than all the other ones tried.

chrisonabike wrote:

Reminds me of the comment about democratic government being a flawed system and only better than all the other ones tried.

The problem is that all political systems are flawed, because humans are flawed. But there has to be a better system than the current one, predicated on making the maximum profit for the smallest number of people regardless of the negative impact on the large majority of people.

MattieKempy wrote:

chrisonabike wrote:

Reminds me of the comment about democratic government being a flawed system and only better than all the other ones tried.

The problem is that all political systems are flawed, because humans are flawed. But there has to be a better system than the current one, predicated on making the maximum profit for the smallest number of people regardless of the negative impact on the large majority of people.

That sounds good!  But...

(Waaay off topic of cycle paths and cycling now)

When people say "the system" what level are they speaking about?  I suspect often some system of policy is meant rather than a totally different thing.  That is a wholly radical proposal because changes at a system level tend to involve things like decades of civil war, famines, mass migration - essentially societal collapse.

When people say "good" how, and for whom?  Ultimately, for a system to continue, primarily it has to be good (overall) for the system (empirical version, mathematical version).  Human systems are usually "good" (by some measure) for some of the people - or at least less bad than other systems for most of the people - but they *must* overall be good for themselves.  Systems which don't reinforce themselves will fall apart or otherwise be replaced with others.

Consider Cat-italism:  I give all my money to the cats.  I feel good and it's popular with the cats.  The happiness engendered keeps me doing so, but doesn't otherwise reinforce the system because (without Instagram...) the cats don't show their happiness by generating money.  I run out of money, the cats can't bail me out and when my family applies for guardianship the cats won't be in court to save me.

Another common complaint groups / patterns of organisation is "they were great at the beginning!"  But the original group members leave, or decide they don't want to keep contributing as much, and other people maybe want to do things differently.  Longer-term systems must be capable of working around this.

What's the alternative?

Not for profit companies?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-66173170

Communism?
https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1985-2/desiccation-of-the-aral-sea/

Well, the £57bn that's been paid in dividends to the shareholders of the water companies could certainly have been spent on something rather more useful.

Welsh Water has no shareholders.

Still pouring huge amounts of sewage into the rivers.

Terrible ... but in that case still a better proposition than a company both polluting the water and paying dividends to shareholders, surely?

The money's still going somewhere.

If it's just being siphoned off by overpaid management and staff then you've got all the negatives with even less accountability.

Rich_cb wrote:

The money's still going somewhere. If it's just being siphoned off by overpaid management and staff then you've got all the negatives with even less accountability.

The private ones don't seem particularly accountable from an environmental perspective.  Paying shareholders dividends is simply being accountable to them for giving a return on their money.  That's at best very loosely coupled to whether the company is doing other "good" things from an average individual's perspective e.g. being good stewards of the environment or even presenting a good deal to the customers.

Say Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water were privatised tomorrow.  How will that stop the pollution?

A particular issue with utilities like water of course is that "it's not a free market" and we almost certainly don't want that!  It's not usually practical to connect another company's pipes to my house, bring the bathwater back on the bike or just go without.

The public ones, the issue is always keeping them efficient / effective.  Since operating conditions are being set by government bodies (or monies provided) that's politics!  Of course that also applies somewhat to private utility companies - but of course usually they also have to keep finding additional money for shareholders.

Presumably you'd have to have an awful lot of overpaid management and staff to take up the slack represented by excess monies for dividends?  Are private companies noted for paying their CEOs peanuts to keep them keen?

Discounting "change in the environment" (which is a factor) the existence of fairly longstanding private companies doing a poor environmental job suggests "less regulation" is not the answer.  Of course that might not be "more regulation" but it certainly sounds like "more appropriate regulation".

Water companies are an all round terrible idea. Monopolies are always bad for the customer.

If, big if, they were regulated properly then large fines would reduce profits which would lead to shareholder pressure on the board.

That mechanism is far from perfect but even that is entirely absent for Dwr Cymru.

Rich_cb wrote:

Water companies are an all round terrible idea. Monopolies are always bad for the customer.
...

You're not suggesting some kind of ... nationalisation?

I think nationalisation would be even worse.

The only advantage of privatisation is that you can compare performance between different companies and insist laggards improve.

Overall water supply is a very tricky thing to optimise.

On a tangent, the Romans used to make successful management of water supplies an important step in the advancement of their politicians. If you couldn't run the water system well you'd likely never progress in public life.

Rich_cb wrote:

Water companies are an all round terrible idea. Monopolies are always bad for the customer.

If, big if, they were regulated properly then large fines would reduce profits which would lead to shareholder pressure on the board.

That mechanism is far from perfect but even that is entirely absent for Dwr Cymru.

Without competition, the market will always fail. If I could choose Severn Trent from my taps this morning but Wessex for that after dinner wind down, and obv Thames to flush away that irritating floater, that would be great. But I can't. It makes it worse that investors, using debt loading to increase their returns, only wish to provide a minimal service at maximum cost (looking at you, Macquarie). Not to mention the inefficiency of paying both the water company to run the business and the regulator to stand by whilst rivers are clogged with turds, and the problem of a revolving door between the two sides.

At least with publicly owned water utilities, there's a possibility of some other combination of service and cost.

Water doesn't lend itself well to competition.

Nationalisation will just lead to inefficiency and even worse underinvestment.

The best solution from a selection of not very good solutions is probably privatisation with far more robust regulation but there isn't an easy answer.

"Water doesn't lend itself well to competition.

Nationalisation will just lead to inefficiency and even worse underinvestment."

Would you mind explaining your thinking? It's not at all obvious to me  why nationalisation should lead to those things or what advantages paying private business to do the job might have.

john_smith wrote:

"Water doesn't lend itself well to competition.

Nationalisation will just lead to inefficiency and even worse underinvestment."

Would you mind explaining your thinking? It's not at all obvious to me  why nationalisation should lead to those things or what advantages paying private business to do the job might have.

My thinking is that large organisations suffer from a lot of inefficiencies due to bureacracy. Traditionally, the thinking is that competition between organisations provides an incentive for the organisations to improve and get rid of any poorly performing departments. When there's no competition, then there is no incentive except for internal competition between people which leads to the promotion of the most sociopathic individuals who are prepared to be the most ruthless and have no conscience or sense of social responsibility.

Also, when a monopoly is privatised, it appears that the main incentive is to funnel as much money as possible to shareholders by taking out debts. There's also a big incentive to avoid complying with laws and to avoid investing money into the business as that's money that could have gone to the shareholders.

Indeed. Also, as we have seen with the EU, the "large organisations suffer from bureaucracy" argument is flawed. Large organisations can be lean and efficient.

With a private business, if it's properly regulated, investment should continue throughout economic cycles as water is pretty much recession proof.

If nationalised politicians will raid water companies for revenue during recessions etc leading to underinvestment.

Monopolies are always bad for consumers regardless of who ultimately owns them. With water it's trying to find the best bad option.

Have you ever considered that you are probably one of the 'shareholders'?

I dunno about that (and in the Welsh Water case as Rich_cb notes the holding company has no shareholders). But I'm definitely a customer. And if I went for a dip in a local stream the consequences might reinforce that the local public are *stakeholders*.

As noted for water companies customers can't readily pick and choose. And currently if the company doesn't invest in its infra or dumps sewage clearly that's not resulting in sufficient financial sanction - which is the only language we shareholders understand!

Lo and behold, up sprouts Rich_cb...