In so doing, the public becomes more familiar with the issues. Is it any wonder that, today, Sweden does not have a nuclear-waste debate?What is needed in the UK is a three-pronged strategy First, find out exactly what people are worried about Second, address these issues with roadshow-style displays. Third, develop a transparent process that goes right the way through from the inquiry stage to licensing. Transparency, if done correctly, leads to public trust; secrecy destroys it.One worrying trend is the virtual fistfight between renewable supporters and the nuclear sector. This is unhelpful as it overheats the debate and leads politicians to put off making any real decisions on the topic. In all honesty, there is room for both renewables and nuclear build in the country’s energy mix, so why can’t these parties work together?For new build to be successful, the sector needs all the third-party support it can get, so why not involve the environmental NGOs that are so concerned about climate change?To resolve these issues, the Government should consider establishing an independent commission where an open, honest and transparent discussion can take place.Ragnar Lofstedt is professor and director of the King’s Centre for Risk Management.

His book ‘Risk Management in Post-Trust Societies’, is published by Palgrave Macmillan.. The founder of NTL, Barclay Knapp, complained to this newspaper some five years ago that the problem with his cable company was that “we can stripline [lay cable under] people’s front lawns, but we can’t sell them a phone deal”. And, in the all-out dash for growth and the roll-out of services, if that meant poor after-sales care and losing a few customers (in fact, it lost a lot) along the way, then so be it.Fast forward five years, and the story has not quite turned out how he hoped Continued poor customer service has given cable a bad name. Ed Shedd from Deloitte Consulting says: “Many people don’t really take cable seriously in this country.”Cable TV, with around 3.3 million NTL and Telewest households to its name, is a distant third behind digital satellite (BSkyB with just under eight million) and digital terrestrial television (Freeview with almost five million and growing rapidly). NTL and Telewest, both of which nearly went bust after the dot-com bubble burst, cannot claim to be king of anything.But cable could be about to make a comeback. Rumours that the two companies are preparing to join forces to create a £5.5bn giant are reaching fever pitch.

Telewest has appointed investment bank NM Rothschild to advise it on a merger deal, it emerged last week. Companies do not bring in a blue-blooded investment bank such as Rothschild, whose expertise in media deals is well known, if they do not mean business. So will this deal happen – and will it signal a resurgence of cable?It has always been a case of “when”, not “if”, NTL and Telewest combine The most difficult question has always been “how”. When NTL and Barclay Knapp were in their pomp, he would not entertain a merger with Telewest. Why would the soon-to-be-crowned king of cable need to link up with anyone? With mergers, there are always two people for each job in a newly created company, and Mr Knapp may not have got the top post. His then counterpart at Telewest, Adam Singer, was of a similar mind.

Besides, the two groups were too busy gobbling up regional cable companies to have time to do more than eye each other greedily. Both men hoped that they could outmuscle their rival, and emerge as the dominant player to swallow up the other company.In fact, both empires almost went out of business and Mr Singer and Mr Knapp were replaced within a year of each other. Mr Shedd at Deloitte says that at one stage NTL had around 15 UK call centres; BSkyB, despite having more customers, has just one. The consolidation of the cable industry – for which an NTL/ Telewest merger would mark the climax – mirrors that of the old ITV network where each licence was held by a different company, he adds.As well as saving money, a combined group would be in a better position to compete.

For television, the two companies would have more buying power to purchase content. Since BSkyB, never one to make life easy for its rivals, is the main source for content, this would help them get a better deal – especially as Flextech, Telewest’s content business, is to be sold.For broadband, a combined company would be able to offer the service to 70 per cent of the market, and compete more effectively against broadband on BT’s DSL lines, which is being offered by companies such as BT itself and Cable & Wireless’s Bulldog.The biggest attraction of cable for consumers is the “triple play” offering of television, internet and telephone services from one company None of its rivals can offer this service. But the concept has yet to catch on: most of Telewest and NTL’s customers take only one, or two, of these services. Analysts estimate that if consumers can be signed up to all three, each one would be paying more than £500 per year, compared to an average revenue per user for BSkyB of just over £380.”Getting people signed up to all three services is the holy grail for cable,” says Mr Shedd. Joining forces rather than competing against each other, NTL and Telewest have a better chance of making this happen.Much work is still to be done before the two companies agree to merge.