*I refer anyone Bobby Kennedy’s GDP quote in case people think spending for the sake of “growth” is always a good thing. See: www.goodreads.com/quotes/12060...

Floodplain development also risk prosperity because uninsurable residential properties can’t get mortgages, businesses (often on the ground floor of mixed-use developments) can’t trade, and in general anyone negatively affected has to spend money* to return to normal.

E.g. A 4 year old was too traumatised to return home, so her parents arranged a house swap and a woman with arthritis had to move out of her 6th floor flat because the ground floor’s 8 ft flood had immobilised the lifts, knocked out the electricity and water supply for the flats above.

The takeaway: floodplain developments exacerbate the housing crisis if people have to find somewhere else to live after a flood!

At some point I WILL go back and redraw the area that the developers have submitted their planning application about (because the link in the first thread I ever posted is now a 404!).

Still. EA's update looks like it shows FZ2 taking up more space than it did before, and likewise, FZ3. We just need to wait for the Council to determine whether FZ3b is deemed to be larger, smaller or just the same as it was before...Not sure how long it will take for that to happen...

The key point here is that the Council must now take EAs up to date map (specifically the dark blue bits i.e. FZ3) and SPLIT FZ3 into two: FZ3a vs FZ3b. FZ3b is what is known as the "Functional Floodplain"....

The relevant comparison is Barnet Councils (now out of date) map (maps.barnet.gov.uk/WebMap/Map.a...). Toggle the 'Risk of Fluvial Flooding' map layer (on the left side). You'll see 3 colours (not 2!): orange = FZ3b and purple = FZ3a (dark blue in EA's map) and turquoise = FZ2 (light blue in EA).

Watling Avenue Car Park (+ the adjacent greenspace and car lot) has more Flood Zone 3 (that's the dark blue area) associated with it. The light blue area is Flood Zone 2...

From the look of it, the update suggests that things look worse than we thought. The landing page is here: environment.data.gov.uk/explore/0453...

The most interesting thing for those interested in the Watling Car Park proposals was published last week (25/03/2025): environment.data.gov.uk/support/anno...

Data most relevant to those interested in the Watling Car Park proposals was published last week (25 March 2025): environment.data.gov.uk/support/anno...

“… it’s the fact that a house was built on a floodplain, and perhaps people didn’t know that, perhaps the information was not made available to them.”.

Disaster By Choice: “… we make choices about where we live, about how we live, about who has options and who has resources, so its not so much that it rains a lot and there is a flood…”

tinyurl.com/542fyt2c

And just because the floodplain wasn't actually mentioned, that doesn't mean nobody else ever should!

#mentionthefloodplain #watlingfloodplain

OK, so Michael Caine DIDN'T really have a discussion with Parkinson about Watling Car Park in 1974, but its a nice idea...
The real (and rather delightful) clip is available courtesy of the BBC Archive (via the Internet Archive): archive.org/details/twit...

Thanks for posting. There is a lovely illustration of it in the Barnet Civic News article related to the opening of the library itself (10 October 1968): open.barnet.gov.uk/download/2rp...