Weekly meeting

At this evening's Zoom meeting, we welcomed Caroline and Rachel, from the Anglian Water education team, who were our guest speakers. We also welcomed three other guests, Keith and Malcolm, who were guests of Ivan; and Neil, a guest of Bob. Malcolm is a member of Swaffham Rotary Club and brought greetings from his President.

Caroline and Rachel entertained us with a very interesting talk about the work of Anglian Water, which covers geographically the largest region in the UK, stretching from Lincolnshire and Notts in the North, to Essex in the south. They explained that ours is the dryest region in the country, and the flattest, meaning that gravity cannot be used to move water around, and much energy is expended on pumping it.

We were surprised to learn that the average person uses 133 litres of water per day, and the average household bill is £1.21 per day, making the cost of water to the public less than 1p per litre. A number of schemes are afoot, to ensure our usage of water is more efficient, and to mitigate against problems of flooding.

A lively question and answer session followed, where subjects from sewage treatment to desalination plants were covered in a knowledgeable and good humoured way. President Mike Haythorpe thanked both Caroline and Rachel for their time and for giving us a very interesting and thought provoking talk.