Der Spiegel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Like Dr Alf, I am amazed too.
If the writers at Der Spiegel think that German infrastructure is crumbling then I would like to invite them to Hertfordshire, UK, and take them along the A1 (M), then proceed along the A14, in the rush hour following articulated lorries to the M6, and then travel on the M6 to Warrington.
If that and the plundering of the roads budget didn’t convince them, then a trip to Watford Gap Services and the facilities there, and being cheek by jowl with armies of pensioners eating overpriced food and pushing and shoving them, might begin to concentrate minds.
Turning to the recent floods of the Somerset levels, Der Spiegel might contemplate the UK’s Environment Agency and their statements about “managed retreat” and “Some areas just arn’t worth saving”.
Our water leakage rates under Thames Water were at one time close to 50% because a lot of the pipes are over 100 years old and have never been renewed; average leakage rates are still 30% nationwide versus 5% in Germany.
Then, there is the quality of our houses, their lack of energy efficiency and our inability to build enough of them (we are 11.5 million houses short of what is needed and only build 100,000 a year).
Germany may well have a problem with infrastructure but if it does it needs to look at America and Singapore as examples of what to do.
The UK has nothing to teach them in this regard.
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