One of the sources of revenue I mentioned in
the previous video that helped to fund the massive
piped sewer system investment of the 19th century in
the UK was a rateable value charge on households.
This is a property based tax that requires payments from
householders based on some measure of the value of their property.
This property value-based system of charging for water and sanitation services
has remained in use in the UK right until the present time.
On average, across England and Wales, only 40% of households have a water meter.
The metering penetration rates do vary from
region to region, depending on how much the
private water company in that region has
pursued a water meter installation program or not.
But at any rate there are still many households
in this country charged on the basis of unmetered usage.
And for this a property value proxy is used to calculate the water bills.
This kind of property based charging for water is
not possible in some other parts of the wold.
Its presence in the UK itself is a bit of an oddity.
It's another one of the outlier features of the
UK that are referred to in the previous video.
In the UK this property-based tax link to water
and sanitation dates back to around the 16th century.
This is according to research done
by University of Manchester professor Jean Shaoul.