An exclusive Guardian investigation into water fountains across Britain reveals a shocking lack of alternatives to plastic bottles – but could change be coming?

Michael Gove has suggested water fountains to combat the tide of plastic produced in Britain. Sadiq Khan wants drinking points to dot the London landscape. Twice in the same week, two of the most powerful environmental decision-makers in the UK have offered the same antidote to the country’s plastic addiction: don’t re-buy, refill.

It’s a timely idea. A million plastic bottles are bought worldwide every minute, and drinking fountains have the potential to dramatically cut the consumption of such single-use plastic.

And there’s another bonus: fountains provide a convenient, free alternative to the sugary drinks that line the shelves of high-street stores – a public health angle that others, including Jamie Oliver, have sought to promote.

But how do you get cities replete with fountains? And what point are we starting from?

With drinking fountains most needed in urban centres (where pedestrian traffic is high), the Guardian undertook a survey of councils across London and England’s Metropolitan boroughs.

It allows access to clean drinking water, which for me is a basic human right, but is also a mark of a civilised country Ben Newby

The results were startling. Across Greater Manchester, with a population of almost 2.8 million, there are no council-maintained drinking fountains – with those that had been installed, decommissioned. The same situation was found across Merseyside, with all five councils replying that they have no working fountains, and in South Yorkshire, where a spokesperson for Sheffield council revealed that all fountains “were taken out a few years ago due to health risks and damage”.

Tyne and Wear fares a little better, with one outdoor fountain in South Tyneside and two in Sunderland, while there are four across the West Midlands and one in West Yorkshire.

In London the disparities were even greater: while Lambeth has 25, Newham nine and Southwark 13, a dozen councils – including Sutton, Kingston, Brent and Haringey – reported having no fountains whatsoever.

Whether councils will share the enthusiasm of Gove and Khan for new fountains remains to be seen. Of the 32 London borough councils, only a handful said they were planning to install more, including Lambeth and Bexley, which is set to put one at Lesnes Abbey Woods.

Beyond England’s metropolitan boroughs, however, change is afoot. In Hull, three new drinking fountains have recently been set up by Yorkshire Water. Bristol has recently installed two in busy squares – and has plans to roll out more, as part of the city’s broader effort to combat plastic waste and improve access to fresh water. The first was installed in 2015 off the back of Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital, and Ben Newby of Bristol Water said the key to success was collaboration with multiple partners – including the science centre At-Bristol, Bristol Council and Bristol Waste, which keeps the fountain clean.

“If we tried to do it on our own it would never have happened,” said Newby. “You have got to have that buy-in because otherwise all you do is face barriers.”

As well as the fountains, Bristol is part of a refill scheme that encourages retailers to display a sticker welcoming the public to refill water bottles. While retailers might benefit from selling extra cake, Newby says the benefits are fundamental.

“It allows access to clean drinking water, which for me is a basic human right, but is also just a mark of a civilised country,” he said. “A bottle of water costs 1,000 times the price for something that doesn’t have the same safety restrictions and regulations that tap water does.”

Indeed, Britain is rather behind the times in this regard. Drinking fountains are a common feature in European cities, and have been embraced from Australia – where residents of the town of Bundanoon in New South Wales voted to ban plastic water bottles in 2009 – to the US, where earlier this year San Francisco banned packaged water on city property.

So what’s holding the rest of England, and the capital, back? A clue comes from the past.

In 2008, Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, threw his weight behind drinking fountains. “If this place is generally getting hotter and people are going off buying bottled water I think we should have a new era of public fountains,” he said. But the plans came to nothing, and when contacted about it recently the Mayor of London’s office blamed an all-too familiar issue: money.

“Under the previous mayoralty, several proposals for providing water fountains and water-bottle refill stations were explored, but there were concerns over high installation costs,” a spokesperson for Khan said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A young boy playing with a drinking water fountain. Photograph: CBW/Alamy

Is that all there is to it? Perhaps not. Further research by the Guardian has revealed that public drinking fountains are far from costly. While there are many factors that can affect the bill, a few thousand pounds would likely cover any new fountain.



For example, a spokesperson for Bexley council noted that the cost for the supply and the installation of the new drinking fountain at Lesnes Abbey is approximately £2,700 (money that came from the Heritage Lottery Fund, it said). The figures tally with estimates obtained from other councils.

“For a standard model drinking fountain to be installed in a location where there is an existing water supply and soak away, you would be looking at around £3,500 plus VAT. But adding the water supply and drain connection could see that double,” Hackney Council said.

Indeed, documents regarding the installation of a drinking fountain in Shrewsbury Park, Greenwich, dated earlier this year, suggest it would cost about £6,000 – although in this case the council itself only put in £1,000, the rest to be raised by the community over a period of more than five years.

While the costs appear negligible, cash-strapped councils might still consider fountains a low priority.

Sadiq Khan plans network of London water fountains to reduce plastic waste Read more

“Historically there has been limited interested in drinking fountains in Westminster, though we would consider the installation of additional water fountains in future subject to public demand,” a spokesperson for Westminster City Council told the Guardian, adding that of the council’s 16 fountains, very few – if any – are now operational.



And yet Thames Water appears to be getting behind the idea: “We support the installation of drinking water fountains and are keen to work with councils or other organisations who may want to install them. This includes providing a detailed guide on the standards required to ensure they are compliant with drinking water regulations. We’re also looking at other ways of helping customers have access to good quality, free drinking water while reducing the number of single use plastic bottles.”

Perhaps commercial interests are playing a role. After all, many retailers who are purveyors of bottled water also pay rent to councils. In one instance seven years ago, Britain’s Network Rail operator balked at installing water points in stations apparently because of the impact this would have on retailers on its platforms.



But perhaps the broader reluctance is more cultural than economic. As one official said when asked why there weren’t more fountains in Britain, “they’re just not very British, are they?”

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