The pleasure of wandering around hot European cities this summer was greatly enhanced by the shaded narrow streets and the cool drinking fountains.

Now I see that there is a campaign in the City of London to emulate this with the creation of 150 new fountains.

Some 150 years ago, a group of London philanthropists created the wonderfully named Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association to help fight cholera, which was caused by sewage contaminated water. They also probably hoped to keep the masses out of the pubs!

It is this same body, renamed the Drinking Fountain Association, that has decided now decided to help rid the Square Mile of the contemporary curse of plastic drinking bottles – which is a slightly different reason than in Victorian times.

Let's make Bristol 'Water City'. I propose we put a plan together with Bristol Water and Wessex Water and start by applying to the Drinking Fountain Association, whose remit is "to promote the provision of drinking water for people and animals in the United Kingdom and Overseas."

Maybe some of our supermarkets could contribute a tiny drop of their huge profits? Sadly, I suspect they prefer to mug us with indecently expensive water transported in plastic bottles from all over the UK and Europe, and they would see free water as a threat rather than a sponsoring opportunity.

Drinking fountains go far beyond the practical role of quenching our thirst. They are also a wonderful opportunity for animating our public spaces with activity and for interactive public art. The latest drinking fountain in London has been donated by a lifelong Hyde Park jogger who wanted a 'guilt-free' drink on his path and commissioned an artist to make it into a real feature with a sense of fun.

Water has played such a vital part in our city's history and can continue to play an important economic role, particularly by generating energy and in bringing more trade to the region through the port rather than by air.

We also now use the Floating Harbour, rivers and canals for recreation when, within my living memory, they used to be considered dirty ditches into which we disposed of our sewage. How that has changed as the harbour has become a teaming mass of ferries and pleasure boats and a paradise for those who like to mess about in boats.

But I do dream of a day that we dam the River at Avonmouth to give a constant route from the port through the city for sustainable water transport and of course for pleasure. Pending the building of the Severn Barrage, if it were ever to happen, this smaller dam could also be used for the generating of electricity and of course would not be a problem to the Port.

Just think of the extra body of water that would be created down the Avon, of the sailing and pleasure boats freed of the strict time restraints, of the increased use of the banks for recreation and fishing, of the added value that it would bring to such places as Pill and Shirehampton, and of the great views that would be created.

I know there are some who would like to leave things as they are – but we should remember the New Cut is an artificial creation, a diversion of the river to enable the creation of our glorious Floating Harbour, without which we would have nothing of those water-based activities we now enjoy.

Let's drink to Bristol Water City – it is surely our destiny.