Poison Water

In north Cornwall in the summer of 1988, a toxic cocktail poured out of the taps of up to 20,000 homes, changing lives forever. What began with a misplaced delivery to a water treatment facility ended with people across a community consuming water with aluminium levels thousands of times higher than acceptable limits. It would become known as Britain’s biggest mass poisoning and has led to a decades-long search for truth, during which people’s health has suffered and accusations of a cover-up have refused to go away.

In the shadows of this public health disaster, the privatisation of the water industry looms large. At the time, speculation grew that the truth of what had happened was known to insiders but deliberately withheld from the population. A leaked government memo revealed fears among South West Water executives that a police investigation into the poisoning might spook the stock market and damage their potential sale price.

Thirty-seven years on, at a time when water companies are rarely out of the news and with headlines dominated by sewage, pollution, bonuses and bills, this film rewinds the story of privatisation back to its beginnings.

Combining personal accounts with archive footage, this film features locals whose lives have been deeply affected, alongside scientific voices, the head of operations at the former South West Water Authority, and the minister responsible for the privatisation of water within Margaret Thatcher’s government, Michael Howard.