Local Climate Impacts Profile Cheshire East Council Local Climate Impacts Profile Cheshire East Council 0 Local Climate Impacts Profile Contents Page LCLIP Summary report 1 Background 1 Identified costs 1 Moving towards adaptation 1 NI188 2 Recommendations 2 Methodology 4 Summary of results 5 Impacts of severe weather events (summary) 6 Services 7 Future climate projections 8 What this could mean for the future 8 Introduction 9 Methodology 9 Local weather 10 Cheshire Gap 10 Urban Heat Island Effect 10 Severe weather events in the media 11 Extreme heat 12 Extreme cold 12 Wind/tornado 12 Flooding 12 Fog 13 Weather data 13 Keele University weather station 13 Analysis of weather recorded at Keele University weather station 14 West Cheshire College weather station 15 Buxton weather station 16 Highways IceNet system 17 Environment Agency rainfall gauge 18 Vulnerabilities 19 Population 19 Retail 20 Transport 20 Settlement 20 Areas of deprivation 20 Soil 20 Geology 20 Impacts 21 Health 21 Electricity supply 21 Cheshire East Council i Local Climate Impacts Profile Water supply 21 Retail 21 Tourism 22 Biodiversity and wildlife 22 Transport 22 Food supply 22 Services 23 Customer service 23 Procurement enablement 24 Green ICT 26 Policy & planning 26 Biodiversity 27 Leisure 28 Highways 30 Transport 33 Finance 33 Green spaces 34 Car parks 37 Children & families 37 Civil protection 38 Risk & compliance 39 Facilities 40 Libraries 41 Adult Services 42 Tatton Park 43 Police Service 46 Weather related costs 47 Costs reported by services 47 Thresholds 49 Heatwave 49 Highways Decision Matrix Guide 50 Highways Treatment Matrix Guide 51 River Dee drought thresholds 52 Adaptation 53 NI188 53 UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) 54 Crewe and Congleton high emissions –precipitation 55 Crewe and Congleton medium emissions – precipitation 57 Crewe and Congleton low emissions – precipitation 59 Crewe and Congleton high emissions – temperature 61 Crewe and Congleton medium emissions – temperature 63 Crewe and Congleton low emissions – temperature 65 Macclesfield high emissions – precipitation 67 Macclesfield medium emissions – precipitation 69 Macclesfield low emissions – precipitation 71 Cheshire East Council ii Local Climate Impacts Profile Macclesfield high emissions – temperature 73 Macclesfield medium emissions – temperature 75 Macclesfield low emissions – temperature 77 Nantwich high emissions – precipitation 79 Nantwich medium emissions – precipitation 81 Nantwich low emissions – precipitation 83 Nantwich high emissions – temperature 85 Nantwich medium emissions – temperature 87 Nantwich low emissions – temperature 89 Recommendations 91 Key areas 92 Acknowledgements 94 Appendices 96 Severe weather events database 97 Service questionnaire 107 Keele University weather station graphs 109 West Cheshire College weather station graphs 112 Buxton weather station graphs 114 Procurement Enablement graphs on essential mileage 116 Scoring chart for Risk 117 Risk matrix – likelihood and impact 118 Crewe swimming pool energy consumption 2008/09 119 School closures 05/01/2010-09/01/2010 120 Hurdsfield Road, Macclesfield 122 Countryside Service impacts 123 Withington rainfall gauge 124 Highways weather data 125 Land drainage problems and outline solutions 126 Post storms/severe weather site risk assessment - Tatton Park 131 Assessing hazards during a tree inspection at Tatton Park 132 Adverse weather procedures and guidelines – Tatton Park 133 Glossary 136 References 137 Cheshire East Council iii Local Climate Impacts Profile LCLIP summary report This is a summary report of the Local Climate Impacts Profile, consisting of a report over 100 pages, which will follow shortly. Background A Local Climate Impacts Profile (LCLIP) is a report on the vulnerability of Cheshire East Council, assessing the impacts of severe weather events on council services, to make sure that the council is prepared for any such future events. Identified costs Financial information has been gathered and analysed for a five year period (2005- 2010) across Highways winter maintenance, Highways drainage, building damage and land drainage for Building Control, and a total five year cost for these services alone is £8, 690, 778. Some of these costs are likely to be greatly underestimated, and so the actual costs of severe weather events could in fact be far greater. Moving towards adaptation The Climate Change Adaptation Strategy is an essential part of NI188, and will enable adaptation to be integrated into all future projects for the council. • Adapting now could help avoid unnecessary costs and damages in the future. Adapting can help to assess the risks to the council from severe weather events, and any Business Continuity Plans can be based on any findings from a risk assessment. Cheshire East Council 1 Local Climate Impacts Profile NI188 NI188 is divided into five different levels, which are: Level 0 – Baseline. - The Authority has started the process of assessing the potential threats and opportunities across its services, and agreed the next steps. Level 1 – Public commitment and impacts assessment. - The Authority has made a public commitment to identify and manage climate related risk, and has carried out a local risk based assessment of vulnerabilities and opportunities to current and future weather and climate. It has also communicated these potential vulnerabilities to service heads and local partners, and set out the next steps. Level 2 – Comprehensive risk assessment. - The Authority has undertaken a comprehensive risk based assessment of current and future vulnerabilities to weather and climate, and has identified priority risks for its services. Level 3 – Comprehensive action plan. Level 4 – Implementation, monitoring and continuous review. The North West Climate Change Action Plan requires that the councils in the region reach Level 2 of NI188 by 2012. Level 2 also requires that they have started incorporating the best adaptive responses into council strategies, plans, partnerships and operations. Appropriate adaptive responses for the priority areas should have been put in place, and work should have started with the LSP to encourage identification of major weather and climate vulnerabilities and opportunities affecting the delivery of the LSP’s objectives. This LCLIP is the first step in this process. Recommendations Those recommendations from the LCLIP that are agreed with service heads will form the first part of Cheshire East Council’s Adaptation Strategy, and could include: Gather information on the drainage of the network, identifying the drainage asset could be put on a computer system for people to see. This could be useful to show areas of the network that particularly struggle with heavy rain, and would help to locate any weak areas in the system. High risk flood areas should be identified and mapped. If these hotspot areas are known about, the council can prepare for possible future flooding and be better prepared. Weather alerts should be sent to the public by a faster method, the system could be made more interactive. Cheshire East Council 2 Local Climate Impacts Profile Schools should be made aware of their responsibility to close, reinforcing the appropriate criterion, due to severe weather, which could help to prevent confusion. Relevant staff need to be engaged in the idea of risk assessment and Business Continuity Planning. The introduction of more laptops and other aids to mobile working should be encouraged to reduce the affect on services of severe weather events, wherever it is practical and relevant to the work. Trees should be checked in car parks and schools, to reduce the risk of them falling over in severe weather and causing damage or injury. The Corporate Risk Register should have a section detailing severe weather events. This would help to raise the profile of severe weather events and climate change within the council, and would also help the council to become more prepared. The process of undertaking this LCLIP study has identified several key areas in which the council could improve its services during periods of extreme weather. Business Continuity Plans It is essential that services have Business Continuity Plans relevant to events of severe weather. This should enable staff to work – either from their usual location or from home, and also services such as leisure centres and libraries can remain open to the public. Schools Communication needs to be improved along with an understanding of how schools can be affected by severe weather; schools need to know that it is their responsibility to close a school for a day, and not the responsibility of the council. Cheshire East Council 3 Local Climate Impacts Profile Emergencies Wind has been identified as the most likely severe weather event to occur in the future, and also the one which could cause the most damage, causing the most disruption to council services. The Civil Protection team need to prepare for a potential increase in the destruction of buildings and associated emergency measures aimed at protecting the people of Cheshire East. Communication Communication could also be improved; confusion in times of emergency could prove costly or fatal in some circumstances. All of this information can then be gathered and written into a Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for the council. Methodology The study has been carried out in 4 phases as follows: 1. Media search – News reports (January 1998-February 2010) indicating that a severe weather event has affected human lives (included in a database)