London’s risk from rising temperatures

A house of mutliple occupation has just been built near me and they've virtually demolished the whole of the back garden. Just more dark brick. And front garden also paved over. A massive loss of shading, cooling, habitat. So sad. It replaced a beautiful bungalow.

Just done the survey but it didn't mention public toilets!!! If we're going to heed the advice to drink lots of water we need more public toilets!!! It's a scandal that you can't find these outside London! Every tube station and every bus stop should have a drinking fountain and every station and bus terminal should have free toilets

We need to plant more tree'  and more cooler stopps in order to breath aand to avoid getti g hypo

Please can we get our front gardens back? Tax or parking incentives? I can't understand why councils are not tackling this. Nonsensical to put in SUDs but continue to let people pave over gardens. Gardens provide cooling, flood absorption, shade, CO2 absorption, pollination. Many more street trees and shrubs needed.

Houses and "new" big developments -including large blocks of apartments, continue to use bricks and windows to absorb heat like 100 years ago. Public buses have become mouse traps with each new version having less and smaller windows, and either no ventilation or an unbearably loud air-condition system. The tube is an inferno, with even the seats designed to make things even worse with the heat. There is an overdose of rhetoric, with stations announcing "carry a bottle of water in hot weather" but there is NOT A SINGLE STATION with a public water fountain. More and more cars fill London car dealers without control every single day when each single street in London is saturated with cars on both sides of the road for a while now. I mean, are you serious?

It's dramatically cooler walking through the park yet in my area they are building on every green space and it's getting hotter and hotter. They build right up to the pavement edge. 

We have installed better blinds/curtains on some windows, and will be looking at adding more in the future. Changed our pattern to keep windows closed during much of the day. Added temperature sensors to help track changes. Installed a ceiling fan in our main living room, which has helped significantly; also bought two smaller desk fans for bedrooms.

We've also increased our rain water storage capacity by 340%, giving us almost enough to make it through most droughts by topping up over window. Looking at adding more as part of existing work.

The main thing that would be great to see would be better protection on existing trees and waterways, as both help immensely, as well as stronger initiatives to plant more. Particularly along pavements/streets; there is such a huge different walking along a street with 70%+ shade than one with nothing but street lights and maybe some planters. Fewer cars, more trees please!

Also, air conditioning on trains and tubes. We have two lines from our local station, one with air-con, and one without. We actively arrange our days in the summer to avoid the latter, and based on how crowded the former gets, I don't think we're the only ones. I understand that the tube has engineering barriers to providing proper ventilation, but there is no excuse on the Overground.

I was in the hospital when it was very hot outside. No Aircon at all. If we are going to get hotter summers? We need aircon.  We need to be more like mainland Europe. And as other people have commented, we need more trees. 

I live in a block of flats managed by the council which has a centralised heating system. The block is also well insulated. This makes for very comfortable and easy winters, but when temperatures near 30C in the summer it is impossible to keep the flat cool no matter what you do. There is no roof overhang or awning to shade the windows. I think retrofitting blocks like this to cope with future extreme heat would be a huge improvement. 

• Provide more public water fountains/water refill points (including at tube stations!!)
• Put more shade in public areas!! Trees, or even awnings on streets/shop fronts if there is no space for trees. Provide discounts to encourage local businesses to get awnings for their street
• Make white/light coloured rooftops mandatory or heavily subsidised to help absorb heat

Change planning regulations so developers are required to plant more trees at street level, this will help lower temperatures in very built up areas like the City of London benefitting workers and residents.

 Regulate air conditioning units which while cooling the interior, create more heat outside.

I try to do things outside early in the morning or late in the evening and stay indoors in heat of the day. I keep blinds closed on south side of house and windows shut in the day time and open them at night. I use a portable electric fan to keep cool at night. 

The biggest challenge for me is how hot my workplace is. There are no windows, no air circulation, no air conditioning so temperature inside is usually 3 to 4 degrees higher than outside. We have complained for the past 5 years to the manager and the owner, but no action has been taken. One of the biggest things that the government and mayor need to do is issue a public guidance and doctrine around what is acceptable and what is not and a route to challenge work practises to external parties. The Hearth & safety act simply does not cover the problem. We can take unpaid or sick leave, but we only get paid the statutory minimum wages. 

In addition the tfl needs to improve significantly - particularly the central, jubilee, bakerloo, victoria and piccadilly lines which always have delays and are extremely hot!

I noticed a big difference in temperature between my back garden (which has a lawn and shrubs and small trees) and the street in the front of my house (which is stone/tarmac/paving).  Households should not be allowed to concrete over more than 25% their front or rear gardens (except in exceptional circumstances, where there is a good reason for doing so).  We need more green spaces, with large trees (in my local park, Finsbury Park, the shade created by the lovely London Plane trees makes such a difference in the heat, and it's great to be able to go and sit under the trees to escape the heat).  Also, parks should be accessible to the public as parks, not music venues (this is especially important for people who don't have gardens).  The large commercial events which now take place in several parks around London during the summer deprive local people of a much valued green space.  Our Parks should be protected as green havens, which everyone can relax in and benefit from the cooling effect of trees and greenery.

My biggest bugbear is how hot all the buses are.  There are very few even of the newer buses that actually have functioning air conditioning and most seem just to blow out hot air and have windows that do not open.  They are unbearable. ( And are freezing in Winter.)  Some newer buses do not have a window at the back now, so you cannot see if a bus is arriving behind you. Really annoying as I so often have to bus hop because buses are so infrequent or we have to keep getting off due to driver change over of cessation of the bus due to not enough on the route.  I don't know how the drivers cope.   Some of the tube trains are cooler such as Circle line and Jubilee but most are baking hot.

The " Boris" buses are unusable when the temperature is high. The air con has never worked and the windows are totally inadequate.