Sir – Further to Derrick Holt’s letter about water (Out of local control, June 25), how do we get our public water supply brought back? According to We Own It, over 70 per cent of the public want the railways, energy companies, Royal Mail and the National Health Service to be in public ownership.

A start would be proportional representation in parliamentary elections: that would force political parties to pay more heed to what we (nearly) all want.

Local authorities across the world are turning the tide on water privatisation: Berlin, Bordeaux, Brest and Paris are among European cities to do so in recent years. The report Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back into Public Hands says how they did it. We can too.

Bill MacKeith
Oxford