Preparing London for extreme weather

As many of the comments here make clear, the challenges we face to adapt to our changing climate are huge. After the national news of the past 24 hours it doesn't seem that the most powerful politicians in the UK even consider this adaptation as the main priority facing us and that question is the one that needs to be resolved first. Whatever actions we then decide to take need to be carefully considered because resources are so limited at this time (recognising not all actions will require large amounts of resources to be committed). We need input from a number of parties, including experts on the subject and to select the actions that can be taken soonest and have the biggest impact because as many experts tell us, taking action is now urgent. All of this needs to be coordinated, managed and sadly some parties will need to be compelled to join the action selected because not everyone will prioritise it in the same way. All of this tells us that our response to the changing climate needs to be driven by a central party, with the power to deliver and engage and make others do the same - is the London Mayor's office the right party to take on this challenge? I doubt it but perhaps it could be an important lobbying voice? I certainly want and expect my mayor to talk about this issue in the way it deserves because I think it is the biggest challenge we face. Without a livable environment, what else do we have?

I really think it would help to keep London cooler, feel more pleasant and be less susceptible to localised flooding if more gardens could be kept as natural gardens without so much paving, cladding, concreting over and plastic grass.  Rain water needs to be able to soak into the earth and be taken up by plants rather than be directed down the drains all the time.  Green grass and trees and plants have a big cooling effect during very hot weather, they also reduce glare and reflected heat to homes in cities. Also building controls and sensible advice need to be used to prevent so many buildings and new hose extensions being made of so much glass.  The solar gain is not pointed out enough to homeowners having huge glazed doors and windows.  These can make a house extra hot in periods of very hot weather, and take so long to cool down once the heat has built up. This makes people start to rely on air conditioning units and fans to try to keep cool.  This uses loads of extra energy and also causes more heat to be pumped back out into the local area.  It's a lose lose situation.  

Rainwater harvesting is a simple and obvious solution to healthier rivers, more drought-resilience, and a reduction in fresh water extraction and treatment.

Water companies should be obliged to subsidise a scheme to encourage households to install rainwater harvesting tanks, implemented by the company or through local authorities.

Last year, we had an extensive drought which saw rivers across the country reach never-before minimums. Paradoxically, we also had frequent sewage overflows into other rivers, causing widespread ecological damage.

Thames Water sewage overflows occur 50 times a year - hardly an exceptional event. Astonishingly, even when the Tideway Tunnel is completed, there are still expected to be occasional overflows, of 2.4 million cubic metres / year!

The Met Office says that hotter summers brought by climate change will mean stronger summer storms. This excessive water overloads drains which has led to disastrous flash flooding in urban areas.

Meanwhile, up to 50% of treated household water is used for garden irrigation. This is a truly mad situation.

If 533,000 households installed a 3,000 litre rainwater storage tank (or 2m households with 800 litre tanks), this would amount to the entire capacity of the Thames Tideway tunnel The Tideway Tunnel cost £4.2bn. By contrast, subsidising 500,000 tank installations could cost £500m, around 1/8 of the cost.

Advantages
> Less chance of surface flooding
> Fewer sewage overflows through lowering loading of combined sewers
> Lower extraction from rivers and groundwater for fresh water used for garden irrigation
> Less energy used to treat water used for non-potable purposes
> Recharged groundwater through surface drainage
> Avoid the need for major infrastructure, which uses tonnes of carbon-intensive concrete
> Tanks can be made of recycled plastic, creating demand for this material
 

Firstly, they should not be building in areas such as wetlands. They should not be removal of established hedge systems, mature or ancient trees that are ‘replaced’ by new saplings that cannot do the same job for the ecosystems.

There should be green infrastructure strategies drawn up by public bodies who collaborate. Maps that show where water can be stored.

Water companies should act as water stewards to sustain the whole water cycle. They need to stop making such profits & invest in natural solutions. Water companies should Stop storm overflows being used on a regular basis, if at all any more.

I did get involved with my local rivers trust and did a survey of my local brook for pollution. Like most people - I think we are being looked after by people in charge but realistically, I know we are not. In London there is the ultimate fight against nature but nature has a way of still shining through & even showing us who is boss. We have wetlands which get built on & trees that are removed. We need to start considering that we need to work with nature & not fight against it or destroy it.

I’m currently reading What Nature Does For Britain by Tony Juniper. There is a lot of information of what has been done in the past & what needs to be done. Please ask the Mayor to read it or whomever is involved with the London Climate Resilience Review.   

Since central government initiatives to address household energy use are proving unwieldy and ineffective, more should be devolved to local authorities including the Mayor's Office. In the same way that the congestion charge and ULEZ has been implemented on the local scale, installation of heat pumps, improved insulation and renewable energy generation should be done London-wide using the co-ordinating power of the Mayor's Office. Local authorities should also be involved as, for example, Enfield's initiative in procuring household solar energy installation.

New housing should be regulated.

London used to have various housing estates  which were torn down and replaced by taller more populated higher rise housing.

In some places already suffering mould, damp and building defects.

There should be stringent quality control and carbon footprint rules on new builds.

The problem with the environment is that that the issues are so enormous that most authorities - from national to local government - are like deer in the lights of a juggernaut. They run around, seemingly panic stricken, tinkering, doing a bit here and there, but in reality, for life on Earth to continue, everything has to change.

There ARE easy wins that COULD be achieved.

National government COULD legislate to require all new builds, or properties getting roof replacement to replace all tiles with solar shingles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_shingle) which would dramatically up the amount of passive electricity feeding into the grid, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and lowering bills. They COULD also require new builds to be designed to European best practice for insulation/environmental standards. And they COULD remove the planning constraints on on-shore wind, that effectively neuter it.

Sadly they WON'T. They're utterly corrupt and in the pockets of rich developers, they'll not pass any law that reduces their ability to profit. They're also in thrall to the nimbyism that riddles their electoral base and so they'll not pass any law meaning that people have to 'put' up with a wind turbine 'ruining' their view of the cotswolds.

Regional government and the mayor's office IS trying hard to make a positive impact - a good example of this is the ULEZ - and this deserves credit because in the face of global catastrophe at least they're TRYING to act. But surprise, surprise this is being undermined buy national government, who are also in the pockets of the car industry and motor lobby.

The tragedy of all this is that I doubt politicians will act until the water is lapping around our necks. It's like a scene from 'The Day After Tommorrow'.

And, like the movie, I don't think this will end well.

All of which leaves me weeping for future generations, who will ask, why the hell didn't you do something when you had the the time to act.

fener made a point about increasingly older population correlating with increasingly disabled population. U.K. housing stock has virtually no housing to Habitat or similar standards, fully and equally for disabled residents. It costs a surprisingly small percentage of a developer's profits to make them all up to standard, which would redress the absence, but the builders resisted a suggestion to change building regulations, to achieve this (public consultation on Raising Accessibility Standards for new Homes 8 September 2020) This was accompanied by an Equalities Impact Assessment, stating "It is  a POSITIVE BENEFIT" for disabled people  to have absolutely nowhere to live.  If anyone in Mr Khan's empire cares about London, he might ba n bonfires to help those who can barely breathe, and he might order that Building Regulations will be to Climate Resistant standards, and to Habinteg standards, because Discrimination Matters.  Disabled Lives Matter.  Old Lives Matter. Women's Lives Matter, and non-habitable housing leaves women, the predominant carers for young, old and disabled people, at the mercy of killing air outside, burning temperatures inside, and battling to move buggies or wheelchairs through steps or narrow doors (and, the peculiar torture of wrongly adjusted killer - strength fire door CLOSERS, which  disabled weak or frail person know about and fear,  which cause injury and pain and  which would would entrap inside burning buildings.)  So yes, fener is right, the Mayor should not ignore old and disabled people.

One issue which receives insufficient coverage is the problem of overheating in flats at first floor level and above in the south east of England, particularly London, given the urban heat island effect.  This issue has already been flagged up by the government's own advisory committee on climate change, but needless to say, has been ignored by the current Tory administration.

I live in a first floor flat in a converted Victorian house in north London & it is several degrees warmer in my flat than the ground level flat below, which is shaded by the taller building opposite.  During the 2022 heatwave, the living condidions in my flat were unbearable - I had to resort to standing behind my pulled close fridge door at regular intervals to cool down, clearly not a great option.

Many younger, older and disabled people find it hard to regulate their body temperature.  As a disabled person, one symptom of one of my conditions is an inability to properly regulate my temperature, whilst I am on a very low income of disability benefits.  This means I can't afford to properly insulate my home to keep it cool in summer & warm in winter.  Government must commit to a mass insulation scheme, given that the UK has the poorest insulated homes in Europe.  

Other interventions, including shutters, awnings and white roofs where possible to reflect sunlight and thereby minimise heat absorption, must also be implemented to make the UK's old and poor quality housing stock safe and comfortable to live in for millions of citizens.

I stopped the housing association which runs the large sheltered housing block opposite my home from felling several mature trees, as they provide amenity including shade and an average several degrees reduction in temperature at street level.   My borough is under pressure from insurance companies however, to fell several hundred trees in a pre-emptive move to reduce their costs should any homes be subject to subsidence.  This practice should be banned.

I work for the Met Police and as a department funded by the Mayor, I don’t think it is doing anything like enough.  The Police aren't taking it seriously even though the climate crisis affects them enormously. As a large building owner there’s a lot more they could do to adapt their estate such as green roofs, rainwater capture and storage, solar panels, EV chargers for those who have to drive into work, a much larger EV fleet, prevent idling of polluting vehicles, better recycling, increasing biodiversity (tree planting, no-mow policy), essential travel only during high pollution days.  To be honest though, all the above should be done by all businesses and land owners in London.  Second home and empty homes should be outlawed so we arent tearing up new green belt and wasting precious resources building new homes when there’s thousands of unoccupied houses owned by the very wealthy, sitting empty. 

Take steps to:

Increase permeability of surfaces, including domestic gardens. Impose penalties for decisions that contribute to flooding and exacerbate heat waves.

Particularly encourage planting suitable for Essex / London climate.

Help wildlife with corridors and a presumption of access to domestic gardens. 

Wildlife ponds.

Climbing plants - particularly for walls that otherwise exacerbate heatwaves.

Plant trees to lower street temperature. Protect them from motorists.

Planting including rain gardens.

Harvest water from roofs and store underground. Also attenuation.

International scientific studies carried out over 60 years ago predicted the world was heading towards a new Ice Age, but before that event occurred, the planet would heat up.  Global warming is happening now and will continue.  The extreme weather conditions this will create will become more frequent and intensive.  As far as London is concerned, we will all need to take action.  This includes national and local government, businesses and residents alike.

From a civil engineering point of view, London's drainage, sewage treatment, transport and utilities infrastructure will need to be upgraded and fully prepared for dealing with predictable problems.  For example, London's sewerage and sewage treatment systems are increasingly becoming unable to cope with constantly growing demand, due to many factors.  London's highways and transport systems also need urgent attention, particularly deep-level tube lines, with regard to the very significant risks associated with storm conditions.  

With regard to air quality, the increasing density of development in London, the rising numbers of (stationary or slow-moving) vehicles on the capital's roads, the lack of open spaces with sufficient tree planting all contribute to the worsening problems, particularly for pedestrians.  

Random idea came to mind so I thought I’d put out there. 
If Flash flooding can be predicted a general text alarm system could ask people not to add water to the sewer systems. Ask residents to not drain baths use showers flush toilets. Empty water butts before hand and councils could clear known trouble spots in their sewer systems prior to this. Plus any water storage catchment areas could be cleared before hand as well. 
Businesses could participate also. 
In icy conditions or with major snow events residents businesses could be asked to clear their sections of paths and possibly roads..
Reducing falls and hospital visits. 
Their was always a grit box in the street when I was younger. Maybe a street marshal with supplies of grit. 
General texts and adverts could ask residents to check insulation on their condensation pipes for there boilers perhaps even before the winter. Making sure the heating is ready to use. 
Safe places for those in need. a method to get them there. 
 

Resilience should be made an integral part of addressing the city’s other challenges and making improvements. 

For example, new developments - residential and commercial - should be built with consideration for extreme temperatures, require flood-preventative planting, and developers should be required to contribute toward shared green spaces. Existing buildings should be retrofitted including planting for resilience, with incentives such as priority retrofitting for people who switch to plants instead of concrete in gardens or public transport discounts for people who agree to give up their on-steeet parking space.

National government intervention is required to make sure these policies don’t hinder house building and worsen the housing shortage eg. planning reform away from case-by-case decision making  to give developers confidence and a national training scheme with 5+ years funding for retrofitting-related construction skills. 

Similarly, more green space is beneficial for flood prevention, extreme heat, air quality and overall quality of life. Green spaces could be funded by local taxes such as workplace parking levies or payroll taxes on large employers, and additional space could be created without worsening the housing crisis by removing the vast amount of space given over to cars and on-street parking. 

These changes are politically difficult and will require new legislation in many cases. This is why resilience should be factored into every level and area of governance and all areas of life in London - a suite of small changes is more achievable than a single comprehensive reform, and will in the long run bring people and businesses behind these policies. 

Fully agree with all of points raised by  Skermarta

Stop building on flood plains unless you build on stilts to prevent flooding, commission new thamesBarrier, now, dredge the thames properly and regularly, strengthening and increase height of agerd and challenged thames walls to protect London and central London housing

Start the design and planning of a complete rebuild of London elsewhere, preferably on higher ground somewhere near the centre of the UK. 

Eventually this current version of London could mostly be dismantled, leaving a core of important historic architecture and archeology surrounded by wilderness (swamps and beaver reserves perhaps?).  

The new London should be built for the changed climate, whichever way it goes, resilient, producing its own power from wind, solar, and vibrational power sources. It would not have huge ugly sprawling two-storey dwellings suburbs - instead multiplexes and plenty of semi-wild green space. 

Meantime - find a way to insulate the old blocks of flats that thousands are living in. They are too hot in summer, too cold in winter.  If they cannot be given external insulation, they must be insulated internally, even if this means making rooms a bit smaller.  It is suspected by some that Housing Assocations do not intent to insulate these buildings at all.  Insulation is essential. A serious programme for insulating London should have been started already - so where is it?

i'm sure there are lots of ways in which 'we' - i.e. national and local gov, businesses, and individuals - should be seeking to reduce or avoid future catastrophic climate changes.  But this survey is not about that - its about ways in which we can make ourselves more resilient to the climate impacts that are happening right now and affecting people in our borough, especially those on the breadline and in poor housing.

Of course I am worried about the survival of my garden in the hot dry summers - but far more important is to help us all carry on our lives in the face of heatwaves, extreme cold weather, and flooding caused by rain storms.

That means government programmes to assist with providing heating, ventilation and insulation for homes and other places where people gather - and government action to push back on rogue landlords cramming their housing with tenants who have no safe and secure alternatives.

London wide & local plans to require 

1. All paving over gardens to be removed so precipitation penetrates where it lands rather than overloading the drainage system. 
2. All car parking at supermarkets & out of town centres, to be removed access by public transport, walking & cycling only, Cycle deliveries for heavy loads so precipitation penetrates where it lands rather than overloading the drainage system. 
3. Reallocating road network to housebuilding, bus priority, walking & cycling rather than building on existing greenspace/belt.