Britain’s floods show how unprepared it is for the climate crisis. Photo:Getty
FEBRUARY 23rd 2020
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily
Large Number of UK homes in Severe Risk of Climate Flooding
After the hard and devastating passing of storms Ciara and Dennis that’d hit the UK, there’s been a harsh increase in floods around the country. And a high number of homes may be in danger.
It’s been noted that one in ten of all houses built in the UK since the year 2013 are at risk of suffering from the floods that have been devastating the country at a higher than regular rate as of late. To specify, it’s been revealed by official figures recently that many homes were built in high risk areas. And with the rise in floods that the UK has experienced since the storm, which have involved 2 deaths, it is expected that homeowners in these areas may suffer for it in the near future.
“We’re compounding the existing risk by continuing to build on the floodplain. The more we’re paving over natural areas the more we’re making it easier for water to move across the land and enter rivers,” says Professor Robert Wilby, of the University of Loughborough who believes it’s time for the government to review its housebuilding targets.
Experts and council leaders have expressed words of warning to residents of these high-risk areas, in light of recent events regarding the storms and the floods. Not only are the present residents at risk, they say, but future residents too, in large due to the pressures being put on the local authorities at the moment to get to building thousands of new homes. This, in spite of a present shortage of suitable sites for new houses, which could only lead to a plethora of new homes built in high-risk areas.
In the past few years, the number of properties being built on such high-risk areas has more than doubled in number. Since 2013, more than 84,000 homes have been built in high-risk areas, bringing with them a threat of future devastation for the families living within them.
Those homeowners who’d already suffered a tirade of flooding after the recent storms had been warned to expect much more in the coming weeks. While floods aren’t uncommon in the UK, they’re hardly ever as dangerous as they have been recently – and are expected to get worse so by those concerned over Climate Change, who grow concerned that every high-risk zone could be struck by disaster in the next few years.
These, the most damaging Winter storms in recent times, have already affected the lives of thousands of people who’ve had to evacuate their own homes. In order to assist in solving the UK’s chronic housing shortage, the government has promised to build 300,000 houses by the middle of 2020, and the desperation to get the task done may only give rise to the problem at hand. Many people do not consider flood issues when purchasing or renting a house, which is only a highlight of the problem – that it isn’t regularly pointed out either.
The worst hit areas so far have been in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire and South Wales. These are the places where the most devastation and casualties have been reported, as a cause of the rising floods.
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily
