London’s tall buildings and tube trains could be seriously damaged if Mayor Ken Livingstone does not address flooding in his London Plan, according to research body GARDIT.
The research body, which comprises Thames Water and the BPF among others, told the Greater London Authority’s environment committee yesterday that around 70m litres of water per day must be pumped out of London to prevent damage to tall buildings and London Underground tunnels. Otherwise, the rise of the water table would seriously damage any deep tunnelling, building foundations, or underground cabling if groundwater levels were not dramatically reduced.
At present, 20m litres of water is pumped out of the capital per day. London Underground pumps out 30,000 cubic metres of water a day from its tunnels – enough to fill around 3,000 swimming pools – with roughly 4,500 litres of this removed from Victoria Station alone.
However, no provision has been made to tackle rising groundwater in the Mayor’s provisional London Plan. Samantha Heath, chair of the GLA’s environment committee, said: “Londoners will need to be assured that the risk from flooding is properly considered in the Mayors London Plan.”
She added: “Many new and exciting buildings could save London from flooding and put this water to good use, for example in air-conditioning systems. The GLA has already made plans to do this in our new building at More London. We need to encourage new developments to take this issue into account.”
EGi News 11/07/01
