Water Meters
We’re telling Southern Water: We DON’T want water meters made by an Israeli company!
Join us!
Read about the latest campaign against water meters in Lewes
Southern Water are carrying out a compulsory water meter installation for all their customers, and the meters are being supplied by Israeli company Arad. The meters are currently being installed in Lewes, and a number of Lewes residents have already refused to allow Southern Water to install a water meter made by Arad at their home.
Like many Israeli companies, Arad is deeply complicit in the occupation of Palestine. To find out more, read the Corporate Watch article “Arad: Supplying water meters to Sussex while helping bleed Palestine dry”.
Brighton & Hove PSC have sent a letter to the Southern Water CEO. We’ve also drafted three sample letters that you can use to complain to Southern Water (see below).
Several local politicians have publicly supported the campaign, including Keith Taylor the MEP for the Southeast, and Norman Baker the MP for Lewes.
You can refuse these meters and ask Southern Water to install an alternative.
Arad is an Israeli company that works extensively in the illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank – having installed 3,200 water meters in the settlements of Ariel and Barkan.
What’s more, Arad develops water meters for the Israeli state-owned company Mekorot. Mekorot operates and develops water infrastructure in the West Bank, where Palestinians are often forbidden from developing even basic amenities such as wells or pipes.
Arad is therefore an integral part of Israel’s apartheid water policies, which systematically deny water to Palestinian communities, whilst subsidising water supplies to illegal Israeli settlements.
As a result of these apartheid policies Israel takes more than 80 per cent of the water from the West Bank Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.
Join our campaign and ask for a non-Israeli meter.
Residents in Brighton have refused to have Arad meters fitted and have accepted the offer from Southern Water of alternative meters. You are entitled to refuse as long as you accept an alternative.
To request an alternative to an Arad meter, please phone Southern Water immediately on 0845 278 0845.
You may also need to inform installers when they appear in your street – they have been instructed not to install at houses that refuse.
Use our sample letters to write to Southern Water:
Sample letter 1 is for customers who have not yet had an Arad water meter installed and wish to refuse
Sample letter 2 is for customers who have already had an Arad water meter installed at their property and wish to have it removed, but did not object beforehand.
Sample letter 3 is for customers who formally objected before their Arad water meter was installed, but Southern Water installed an Arad meter regardless.
Read about Southern Water’s latest climb-down over water meter installation