Well we are all fighting the long defeat, but the strategy of waiting for parts to catastrophically fail before we take any action, runs counter to the 'a stitch in time saves 9' common sense of the earlier generations.

Just maybe it is cheaper for Thames water to run the system into the ground, and make some nice contained projects out of the resultant mess, but what price Perry Vale being closed for weeks? What price London Rd being closed for months when the sewer collapsed there? What price the rail being closed recently? And what if that hole had flipped a thameslink train?

What doesn't help is our press reporting these things as if they are mysterious acts of nature.