{"id":1117,"date":"2012-06-08T09:30:25","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T08:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/?p=1117"},"modified":"2012-09-26T16:58:41","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T15:58:41","slug":"expert-comment-house-of-lords-committee-says-water-shortages-will-increase-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/2012\/06\/expert-comment-house-of-lords-committee-says-water-shortages-will-increase-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert comment: House of Lords committee says water shortages ‘will increase bills’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Ben Lowe<\/a> is currently Director of the Masters of Management suite of programmes at Kent Business School, and a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Kent Business School, University of Kent. Dr Lowe comments on the following BBC news items:<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Water shortages ‘will increase bills’, Lords say’<\/a>
\n‘Thames Water could lift hosepipe ban early’<\/a><\/p>\n

“Dealing with water shortages is a complex issue. Usually a range of policy measures are advocated including the use of price controls, increasing supply of water by building dams\u00a0etc. However, so far it is\u00a0unclear what policies are being put in place to change how we as consumers use and consume water. Increasing price is often seen as being unfair to some in relation to water consumption, and might be regarded\u00a0as a short term fix which doesn’t address the route\u00a0of the problem. However, paying more for this\u00a0resource could become a reality in the future.\u00a0Likewise, other measures such as increasing supply through redistribution of water\u00a0are unlikely to lead\u00a0to changes in\u00a0people’s attitudes and behaviours. British residents are not used to the\u00a0idea of a drought and conserving water – unlike\u00a0residents of other countries like Australia\u00a0– but if we can change people’s attitudes towards water use and consumption this may lead to a more long term solution to the water problem which lasts for years to come.\u00a0If residents’ end up being charged more for the water they consume this should be coupled with change programmes designed to educate customers to reduce their consumption of water in the home. It’s time for us to consider whether we need that long soak in the bath, or whether a shower will do. And if we take a shower do we need to spend 10 minutes in it or will a three minute shower do?”<\/p>\n

For information about the Kent Business School Master’s in Management Suite click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Ben Lowe is currently Director of the Masters of Management suite of programmes at Kent Business School, and a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2299,"featured_media":1118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17593],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1587,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/1587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/kbs-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}