Driving forces behind organisational changes in water supply in south Sweden 1950–2010
Sydvatten (South Sweden Water Supply Co) was formed in 1966 by the municipalities of Malmö, Lund, Helsingborg, Landskrona and Eslöv for organizing and jointly financing the construction of an 80 km long raw-water tunnel leading water from the large lake Bolmen to the vicinity of the municipalities, and thereafter operating the tunnel and the waterworks where the drinking water is produced. In the 1970:ies seven more municipalities in west Scania joined Sydvatten. In the beginning of the 21st century, the board of Sydvatten asked the management for ways to increase drinking water sales to others, non-Sydvatten municipalites, to take advantage of the modern waterworks and the treatment capacity. Since 2005, another four municipalities have chosen to join Sydvatten, and possibly others will follow. Important reasons for Sydvatten to get new customers have been to take advantage of the already made investments in water supply and use the surplus production capacity in the waterworks. Important reasons for the new members of Sydvatten to join has been high costs in refurbishing old waterworks, problems in finding skilled workforce to replace the retired personnel in the water supply sector, and a general acceptance for the idea of cooperating on different arenas instead of operating separate organisations for everything in each municipality.