We need new reservoirs – and it’s a job for the state, not private companies | Letters
David Griffiths says mayors could be empowered to build water infrastructure, while Kevin Whately suggests incorporating communal storage into new housing estates Pete Ford (Letters, 20 August) rightly reminds us that “The Victorians … built reservoirs, aqueducts and local water-storage infrastructure.” But who were these “Victorians”? Generally speaking, they were local councillors and their professional engineers.
Open original article- Ledger record
- #3581
- First seen
- 27 Aug 2026, 16:50 UTC
- Last checked
- 27 Aug 2026, 19:57 UTC
- Version history
- 1 version
- Current fingerprint
c60fb515362a...78fb94
Publisher layer
Recorded article metadata
- Publisher
- The Guardian
- Country
- England / United Kingdom
- Source published
- 27 Aug 2026, 16:37 UTC
- Source updated
- No update timestamp supplied
- Byline
- Guardian Staff
- Section
- Water
David Griffiths says mayors could be empowered to build water infrastructure, while Kevin Whately suggests incorporating communal storage into new housing estates Pete Ford (Letters, 20 August) rightly reminds us that “The Victorians … built reservoirs, aqueducts and local water-storage infrastructure.” But who were these “Victorians”? Generally speaking, they were local councillors and their professional engineers.
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1
We need new reservoirs – and it’s a job for the state, not private companies | Letters
David Griffiths says mayors could be empowered to build water infrastructure, while Kevin Whately suggests incorporating communal storage into new housing estates Pete Ford (Letters, 20 August) rightly reminds us that “The Victorians … built reservoirs, aqueducts and local water-storage infrastructure.” But who were these “Victorians”? Generally speaking, they were local councillors and their professional engineers.
Changed fieldstitlebylinedescriptionTextcontentTextsourcePublishedAtsourceUpdatedAtsectionimageUrltags- Version SHA-256
c60fb515362a...78fb94- Capture SHA-256
09acd808b8ea...01f8d9
Interpretation layer
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Publisher categories are copied from source metadata. Machine signals report observable wording or format and do not determine truth, intent, ethics, or wrongdoing.
- machine content-type Reported news observable-rules-v1 / 70% rule confidence
- publisher category Business rss-category
- publisher category Environment rss-category
- publisher category Local government rss-category
- publisher category Politics rss-category
- publisher category Society rss-category
- publisher category UK news rss-category
- publisher category Water rss-category
- publisher category Water industry rss-category
Public response layer
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Comment counts and samples remain absent until a lawful, source-specific capture method is reviewed. Absence is recorded instead of estimated.
Evidence layer
Capture provenance
- Capture ID
- #3224
- Observed
- 27 Aug 2026, 16:50 UTC
- HTTP result
- 200 / parsed
- Raw payload
- 488,083 bytes, private gzip evidence
- Collector
- news-ledger/0.1
- Public boundary
- metadata and excerpt