Published: 13 April, 2012

• THERE is currently a £1,000 fine in force for anyone using a hosepipe to water their garden (has anyone checked the window baskets at the town hall recently?) and for the first time one southern water company is buying water supplies from Severn Trent area.

At the same time, Islington Council is digging a series of very expensive holes at Tufnell Park Playing Fields to install pipes to remove any water.

A year ago I presented a motion to the full council asking that it install an irrigation system, so that in wet times water could be removed but in dry times it could be pumped back to the places where it was needed.

The Labour administration was extremely dismissive of this idea, saying that the problem was removing water, not adding it.

I understand they might not want to make an opposition councillor look good but it doesn’t take a genius to read long-term water predictions and see which way this issue is headed.

We need water collection pipes from all the buildings at the playing fields (maybe the council could ask for a connection to the rainwater downpipes of Opal4 next door too).

These pipes need to feed the collected water into an underground tank and then, when there is very little water and the ground is hard as concrete and the grass is dying, that saved water can be pumped back out.

It’s not brain surgery.

Obviously, the council won’t do it.

But as it’s already digging the required holes, it really should.

Cllr Arthur Graves
Lib Dem, Junction ward