Londoners should pay for garden paving, says climate resilience report | Climate Crisis

Londoners who concrete their gardens should be charged for it and encouraged to remove the surfacing, a report to the mayor recommends.

The city also needs a new reservoir, better flood defences and a “heat plan” to protect vulnerable residents from the increased risk of heatwaves, according to the climate crisis impact report.

In London, four in ten properties will be affected by subsidence by the end of the decade as the ground dries out in the face of expected higher temperatures, and heatwaves risk claiming thousands more lives if no action is taken.

Surface flooding is also a threat for which London is not adequately prepared, warns the report, which recommends the creation of a strategic surface water authority. This is partly because the amount of land is concreted or paved, meaning the ground is less able to absorb water during heavy rain.

Emma Howard Boyd, the study’s chair, said the recommendation to ask people to pay stormwater charges when they concrete over their gardens was intended to “encourage people to do the right thing for the environment”, rather than penalise them.

“We looked at what worked in other parts of the world,” she said. “We’ve concreted over too many areas – we need to stop creating a city with so many hard surfaces when we need spongier ways to absorb water.”

Where utilities dig holes in roads and sidewalks, it might also be possible to leave “rain gardens” in their place, Boyd added. These are small areas along roadsides or paths where vegetation is planted, which can help absorb runoff after heavy rains. “There are hundreds of thousands of holes being dug by utility providers, which could be mapped and coordinated, and in appropriate locations you could have rain gardens that absorb the water,” she said.

The report, called the London Climate Resilience Review, was commissioned by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, and makes 50 recommendations, ranging from maintaining street trees to building a new Thames barrier by 2070 and planning ways to put out fires without water.

Howard Boyd wrote in the foreword that Khan’s re-election in May, after a campaign in which his advocacy of low-emission zones was a key battleground, showed that local authorities had a mandate to pursue strong climate policies.

“The Mayor of London has won a record third election victory after doubling down on health and climate,” she wrote. “While Londoners saw their vote share increase for the Mayor, the message to other leaders around the world is: keep taking bold action on pollution and climate change.”

She said the new government must consider not only the costs of improving London’s resilience to extreme weather events, but also the costs of inaction, i.e. the “compared to” scenario. If action is not taken to prepare London, the productivity of the capital – and the nation – will suffer, the report said.

According to the report, London loses around £577 million a year due to the effects of heat. Transport for London lost £8.4 million in revenue during the week of the July 2022 heatwave. Around 2-3% of London’s GDP is at risk of being lost each year by the 2050s without adaptation.

The effects of extreme weather in recent years have included severe flash flooding in July 2021 and a record heatwave in 2022, with temperatures reaching 40°C and an estimated 387 heat-related deaths. Wildfires put London’s fire brigade under greater pressure that summer than at any time since the Blitz, and water consumption increased by 50% at a time when reservoir levels were already at their lowest in 30 years.

Howard Boyd said: “We are entering a new era. In 2024, even if El Niño fades, we are bracing for another record year of heatwaves, wildfires and deadly storms. Last year, floods in the UK disrupted lives and devastated local economies. The health and safety of Londoners and the health of the national economy are inseparable.”

She called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take note of this situation. “This is a reboot moment for efforts to increase the UK’s stability in the face of global climate disruption. As the new government takes action to end the cost of living crisis, protecting the lives and livelihoods of working people from extreme weather events is non-negotiable,” she said.