Private Profits – Public Drought: The Creation of a Crisis in Water Management for West Yorkshire

Abstract

This paper examines the political and corporate constructions of the 1995–96 drought crisis in West Yorkshire, when an unprecedented public furore was provoked by the threat of water‐supply cut‐offs. A key outcome of this process was a profound crisis of confidence over the governance of water resources, which can be linked to the privatization of the industry and, more broadly, to the processes of redrawing the boundaries of the state. The water industry illustrates the contestability of neoliberal reforms seeking to inspire market‐led growth with minimal government intervention. In particular, political dogma about the anticipated benefits of market competitiveness failed adequately to take into account public concern for the ‘common good’.