12 months after Katrina, UK Government still ignores flood warnings for London
The battle raging over London’s controversial Thames Gateway housing project has many fronts, environmental, urban sprawl vs city density, quality of design vs volume, immigration/integration, lack of infrastructure, and last but possibly most important, the fundamental question of whether natural flood plains should be developed. The development (Europe’s largest) proposes the construction of some 200,000 homes along the Thames Estuary, much of it on flood plains established over thousands of years - greatly adding to the potential for catastrophic flooding of the capital. Other wake-up calls have not been heeded, and lessons should have been learned from the disastrous 2005 floods in Bombay which were partly caused by development of the mangrove swamps along the Mithi river banks – eliminating the natural buffer created by the mudflats. London Architect Sir Terry Farrell talks to WAN about his alternative plan for a National Park– Read now..
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