One already clear sign of climate change in Britain is that it rains harder. That, plus continuous adding of new estates onto existing towns, has meant that drains designed for a different era are sometimes overwhelmed.
This was particularly obvious in 2007 when 55,000 properties were damaged by floods and as many as two-thirds of these householders suffered simply because the drains were unable to cope with heavy rain.
An expert review came to the conclusion that developers should be forced to provide sustainable drainage systems, dubbed SuDs, in the form of ponds, soakaways and grassy depressions so that storm water could run away and not overwhelm the local sewage system. To make sure house builders did this their automatic right to connect to the existing sewage system should be removed.
The government, having been lobbied hard by the house building industry, has watered down the proposals so much that Lord Krebs, chairman of the statutory Adaptation sub-committee, has written to Elizabeth Truss, the environment secretary, to complain that with summer storms predicted to get five times more intense by 2080 this is a bad mistake.
He protests that 100,000 minor planning applications annually have been exempted from providing SuDs and the automatic right to connect any development to main drainage remains – even if new estates would lead to the local sewage works being overwhelmed.
The government response has been that it is up to local government planning departments to force developers to do the right thing. Lord Krebs ripostes that there is no sign of this happening.
• This article was amended on 16 March 2015. An earlier version said Lord Krebs reposts, rather than ripostes.
