Scottish Water disclosed yesterday that more than 17,000 miles of aging pipes must be replaced but admitted that the massive scale of the problem - equivalent to 62% of the entire network - means the work could take 15 years to complete and cost £2 billion ($3.5 billion)

However, people should remember this. We were all told how poor the quality of the railway lines were and how bad the stations were and we got the privatised RAILTRACK to fix it.

We got worse (deadly in fact) railway tracks, but very glossy southern English railway stations and MASSIVE expense.

We have been told that ONLY BT can provide country wide high speed internet service via DSL, but they are failing.

So perhaps Scots would use their brains (this once) and realise that claims that ONLY a privatized water company could fix the water system is Scotland is spin, an exageration and will more than like end in tears, huge bills and MORE water mains breaking.....