The greatest tragedy is that this was entirely avoidable and was caused by an endless chain of mishaps and bad-faith actions, all based on a core agenda of centralisation and control. We all accept that something needs to be done, and this is how and where the Government has failed. Although they decide what the solution is, it's centralisation and a four-entity mega-model, and that's all in by force, if necessary. They can give councils just eight weeks to submit on that—a laughably short amount of time—but they could have given them 80 weeks and it wouldn't have made a difference, because Cabinet papers show that the decision to take water assets by force had already been made before the consultation had even begun. Then it became a blame game. 