A London council is making available a new guide for landlords with advice and guidance to protect homes and businesses from flooding.

The Householders’ Guide to Folld Protection lays out the steps people can take to help prevent flood water from damaging their home. The guide also includes helpful advice about which interventions can happen without permission from the Council and which require planning permission.

A spokesperson for Kensington and Chelsea council says: “We are working hard to do what we can to reduce our own environmental impact by making our Council buildings and schools greener, but we must be realistic about climate change. 

“The risk of flash flooding around the world is increasing and this guide has been designed to make it easier for people to understand how to protect their own properties and build that resilience across our communities. Some interventions like toilet bungs and flood gates can be very simple and relatively inexpensive, but go a very long way to protecting a home or business in a flood event.”

The council says the vast majority of properties in the borough are at low or no risk to flooding. However, an estimated 20,000 properties are at risk of flash flooding and every time flood water enters a home, the impacts can be devastating. 

Current predictions are for flash flooding in London to be more frequent and more extreme because of climate change. Most recently the devastating impacts of flash flooding have been seen in Spain, but even in Kensington over 500 properties were flooded in a flash flood in July 2021.

The authority says some simple and relatively inexpensive measures can help, such as flood gates or toilet bungs. 

Water butts can collect surface water to reuse at drier times and planting and greening is more permeable than hard surfaces, like paving,