An irreplaceable asset

This is (or should be) one of England's finest chalk streams. It is the Wylye, a river of just 28 miles and during that short journey it has huge volumes of pure water sucked from its underground chalk aquifers. It's cheaper and suits the shareholders better to take water from its uncontaminated source rather than spend money on cleaning the water after it has run its course.

My photograph shows the sad sight just before it joins forces with the river Nadder near Salisbury. Concrete and brick banks, golden gravel covered in a brown scum of algae and not a sign of water plants or trout.

The water authority plans to reduce abstraction by 11,000,000 litres per day by 2018, I can only guess what is being pumped out at the moment