Lambeth police splash out £45,000 on bottled water

Lambeth police splash out £45,000 on bottled water

6:50am Thursday 20th August 2009

By Matt Watts »

Lambeth police have splashed out on more than £45,000 on bottled water in the past three years, leading to strong criticism from tax watchdogs and environmentalists.

Critics said buying water bottles for coolers was both wasting taxpayers’ money, and causing unnecessary environmental damage.

The expenditure - which dwarfs that of Merton and Wandsworth police forces who spent just £188 between them over the three year period on water - was revealed through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request.

Mark Wallace, of campaign group The Taxpayer’s Alliance, said bottled water was “an unnecessary luxury which diverted much needed money away from the front line fight against crime”.

He added: “Lambeth’s residents pay large amounts of council tax and the police precept should not be used on something that comes out of the tap for free.”

Duncan Law, a coordinator for climate change campaign group Transition Town Brixton, said it was “regrettable” any organisation used bottled water.

According to Thames Water, a litre of mains water creates about 0.0003kg of CO2, around 600 times less on average than a litre of bottled water.

The water cooler bottles used are also often made from a type of plastic derived from oil, which is not recyclable and takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

The FoI showed Lambeth police spent £16,859.93 in 2006/7, £6,172.02 in 2007/8, and £22,704.27 in 2008/9 - that included unpaid invoices for 2005/6.

Lambeth police said the provision of water coolers - a total of 16 across its police stations and headquarters in Kennington - was under review.

A police spokeswoman also said the amount spent was misleading because a £7 refund was given to the police for each empty water container returned to the supplier.

She added: “The company we used to supply our water always try to minimise the distance from the bottling centres to their customers to reduce unnecessary road transportation.”

She said officers also required bottled water when they were on operations and accessibility to refreshments were limited, and water coolers were provided in some police buildings that did not have kitchenettes.