Liquid Gold

Paul Hockenhall has one; he is hoping it will save his farm. Simon Beale has one; it has helped him build a profitable business. Peter Scott has three and they have made him a fortune.

What have they got? Just water - a natural spring on their land - and that's the equivalent of liquid gold these days.

The Money Programme investigates the booming market in bottled water. It has doubled in the last five years to £600 million, and the predictions are that it will double again.

There are over 200 bottled waters now available in this country. European waters like Evian and Perrier dominate, and now increasing numbers of small British firms are getting in on the act too.

Paul Hockenhall used to run a turkey farm, then he moved into cattle and was decimated by foot and mouth. But now he thinks his fortunes have changed.

He has found a spring on his land near Buxton in Derbyshire and he is in talks to supply a major supermarket chain. "It's more than I could ever have dreamed of," he says.

Simon Beale runs Spring Clear Soft Drinks not from the highlands or peaks but the unlikely setting of Essex. His firm pioneered flavoured spring water and has now developed an oxygen-enhanced water, dubbed Liquid Oxygen, which can be found on the shelves of top London stores.

"We have to come up with trendy ideas all the time, and we look at the water business very much as a fashion industry," he says. "We're already planning for next year's fashion."

The programme examines why we are prepared to spend so much on bottled water - between 400 and 1,000 times more than the cost of tap water. And discovers whether we can really tell the difference between ordinary chlorinated tap water and the most expensive designer-bottled mineral water.

Liquid Gold was broadcast on BBC 2 at 1930 GMT 31st October 2001