IF I understand it correctly, Yorkshire Water bought the public water utility 11 years ago for £471 million. Their years of management were pretty inept and brought about a tenfold increase in water prices.

Now they intend to force the resale of the utility upon the customers in Yorkshire without consulting them. The asking price of £2.4bn will be 50 times greater than their original purchase price. This will entail each Yorkshire water customer taking on a debt of £1,200, £500 of which will go to line shareholders' pockets. Additionally, to service this debt, it will cost each customer £100 per year.

These costs will fall on rich and poor alike. For this price the customers will not get back the reservoirs, associated land and equipment, but merely the right to pay Yorkshire Water to use them.

Two directors from the Kelda group (who own Yorkshire Water) will be involved in selling for Kelda and buying for the customers. No wonder the price shows a 5,000 per cent increase.

The idea that water should be owned by the community (through a community owned mutual) is a good one and is a tacit admission that water privatisation was a bad one. The above machinations show just how bad.

I ask why this matter has not become a matter of public debate, both in the House of Commons and in the press. Why has no newspaper been quick enough to spot the scandalously outrageous way in which the people of Yorkshire are to suffer extortion at the hands of the water company?

Leo Rosser,

Craven Lane,

Gomersal,

Cleckheaton, West Yorks.

...SHOULD you look a gift horse in the mouth? Well, when it is courtesy of Kelda, aka Yorkshire Water, a close inspection could be well advised, coming as it does from a company whose past record on directors' pay, shareholder dividends and water charges left much to be desired.

Up until now customers have come a poor third in the company's priorities but now Kelda wants to "give" the business back to its customers.

If the directors and shareholders no longer want to own a water supply business, can it then be a good deal for customers to own it?

Since the water regulator has got tough with water utilities, owning one is now no longer the money making machine it once was, something that has been reflected in Kelda's share price performance.

Customers also need to consider a number of additional important issues regarding this "re-nationalisation". Such as who will run the business, who will make policy decisions and who would be legally responsible for any regulatory compliance problems?

Therefore given their past record and with the various unresolved issues, customers would be well advised to ignore this opportunity.

Richard Lamb,

Greystoke Road,

Rawcliffe,

York.