London’s risk from rising temperatures

How did we survive the heat? We are extremely lucky in that we have one room in our home with air conditioning and we all just stayed in there. I took my children out of school because it just isn’t prepared to deal with extreme heat. Small incredibly warm classrooms and playgrounds with little shade are just awful for little children.

Like many have said here, in extreme heat we don’t use public transport- you just can’t the heat is too painful. So you have to use a car. 

The city needs complete overhaul with the knowledge that sadly it is just going to get warmer. Schools and public transport need to be fit for the future. 

TFL should stop introducing heat producing screen advertising panels on escalators and platforms on the underground. They waste energy and add to the heat Load.

More seating is needed on underground platforms for elderly and disabled, who may struggle to cope with high temperatures.

I wish this survey had included options relating to net zero/global heating, as our continued high carbon emissions are the reason why heat is becoming an increasing problem in this country. So anything to do with better insulation in homes, the green energy transition, increasing the use of heat pumps, getting people out of cars, etc would be options worth including here alongside the mitigation possibilities mentioned.

I do get it about public. Transport being too hot, but I find driving in slow moving traffic even worse, myself. I have to drive to work, all different places, and a bad journey can make a job not sustainable, or at least an unpleasant experience. On the bus I can move, cover up a bit, put a wet cloth on my neck etc, but when I’m stuck behind a wheel I feel trapped. 

I have read a lot of the comments here and can only shake my head! If temperatures keep rising then massive changes will need to be made by everybody.

I have spent nearly half my life living and working overseas in places such as Dubai, Cairo, Malta and Sumatra. In all those locations some form of air conditioning seemed vital for my residence, office and transport. Now that I am living full time in the UK I have an a/c in my car and two air to air heat pumps in my house. One in my bedroom and one in my sitting room. Although they were initially installed for heating they also work as good a/cs in the summer. I am now considering installing a big heat pump to provide all my heating but also my cooling in the hot weather. It is sad that this feature of heat pumps i.e. that they also can work as cooling pumps is never emphasised in their sales literature.

Public transport should all become electric so that it can run proper a/c

All public spaces need to be evaluated to ensure that there is adequate shading. e.g. All those areas of glass in buildings needs coating with a reflective coating to reduce heat gain inside.

All buildings need to be properly insulated to keep the heat out otherwise heat/cool pumps will be less effective.

If everybody used heat pumps to heat and cool themselves polluting gas burning would be vastly decreased and electricity usage would be much more efficient.

This will cost a fortune and we need to start now. This can only be done on a community basis as so many individuals cannot afford the cost of converting their homes. Local area heating and cooling schemes are needed throughout London.

When it gets cold you can put on more clothes to try to keep warm.

When it gets hot you need to have cooling provided as you cannot find it in your wardrobe!

What Londoners need to cope with heat:

• Councils and freeholders should no longer be entitled to make outright refusals for AC (air con) installation applications from their residents/long leaseholders - including in listed buildings. While heritage is important - it is useless if it is harmful to people living/working inside. Likewise freeholders shouldn't be allowed to refer to long lease agreements to completely refuse such installations from their lessees - instead freeholders must offer a reasonable alternative if they refuse an original AC installation proposal. For homes lacking any AC Tenants should always be entitled to the use of portable AC equipment overruling any contrary provisions in their tenancy agreements
• Workers should be entitled to maximum temperature at their workplace. If their employer cannot provide it - they should automatically be entitled to work from home for relevant roles, o where not appropriate - it would be a reportable health and safety breach
• As a lot more people have to keep their windows open for ventilation - nighttime noise controls must see more officers allocated to deal with nighttime noise, as well as stricter regulations on the noise itself. Far too open it is impossible to open a window just because your neighbour has a barking dog/watches a nighttime tennis match/summertime party/fire alarm battery expiring, and the council either has no officers available until the day after, or they don't consider the nuisance to be breaching the enforcement threshold
• Similar to Singapore - open containers/reservoirs/puddles of any liquid should no longer be allowed and enforceable as a "noise nuisance" by local councils. Currently unscrupulous neighbours put out buckets of water outside their homes for weeks on end breeding mosquitoes, so everyone around them cannot safely keep their windows open for ventilation, having to suffer from extra heat exposure

Public transport was/is horrendous. No air con on most services and the newer buses have a meager amount of air blowing, that makes no difference at all.

Tubes are boiling, claustrophobic and dirty. Dreadful to travel on.

All London transport has to be assessed to help the health of its users in these horrible heatwaves.

Although our newer bus fleet is generally great for winter they prove not to be so good in summer. More like mobile ovens on some days. Especially when busy. The problem is no forced air ventilation that you use to get on the original routemaster. They should fit air scoops on the side of buses ( e.g. those with a sliding window opener design),this would force air into the bus rather than just pass along the outside. You could probably put them on the pull open window flap design as well. A few holes or gaps in the base of the scoop would allow rain and sleet/ snow to melt awy during winter periods.

There should be a cross over to the housing survey here.  There is significant pressure to build new houses, including affordable.  This will create 2 areas of pressure:

1.  the standard of the houses built - surely these need to be sustainable and energy efficient? They also need to be heatwave sympathetic.
2. we will see some of them built on land currently occupied by green space.  This could end up reducing the impact of tree planting.  I've asked Bromley council how this might impact them but I have been ignored 3 times.

Travelling around London there is no doubt that the older tube stock is totally unfit for purpose.  Appreciate it is expensive but until new carriages with a/c can be provided people will continue to struggle during journeys.

The same applies to older buses probably more a problem in outer boroughs.  I took a 15 minute journey on the 314 and was dripping!

This weather is lovely. Moaning about it is probably part of the culture. Sending out a survey right now is very manipulative, as the weather was very summery indeed. I can just see a lot of money wasted again in useless initiatives, created by people who need to tick a box in their performance review.

All Boroughs should be planning a good deal of treeplanting especially in streets, both in the ground and in large pots. The local campaign here (Oakfield Avenue N8) to prevent the felling of a mature plane tree shows the opposition from commercial firms (insurance for example) to sensible greening, and maintenance of greening in our streets. 

Bought loose fighting clothes , had a midday cold bath, did gardening pr 10.00 am. Bulk cooked and ate cold meats and salads. 

Drew curtains downstairs left  all upstairs windows open

Doing the above, visitors wanting a barbecue made it worse

Bought a small pool for £50 which will be used under a sunbrella. London needs to talk with air conditioning companies and get a good price on one robust stand alone a.c.unit that is affordable

Why don't all TFL vehicles have photovoltaic cells added to them, this would reduce cost and heat