Richard Girling:

Planners under John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, seemed to
regard the country as some kind of gigantic, inexhaustible sponge. The water
industry stared in dismay at the map of southeast England – already
overloaded, and one of the driest regions in Europe – as Prescott’s men
sharpened their pencils and sketched in new settlements with the merry
abandon of pioneers in a virgin continent.

All will need masses of fresh water. All will expect, when they pull the plug
or flush the lavatory, not to have to think about their waste again.

Above all, they do not expect sewage to flood their houses, streets or
gardens. Yet, extraordinarily, the water companies were not involved by the
government until after its plans for expansion had been published. As a
symptom of institutional madness it stands without equal.