Latest news with #floodrisk
Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Tycoon's mega basement plan sparks fears of floods in Chelsea
A millionaire private equity mogul's plans for a luxury bunker under his Chelsea town house have sparked fears of floods and gridlock in the area. Peter Dubens, the founder of Oakley Capital, is seeking planning consent to build a 721 sq metre basement under the back garden of his £10m home in west London. The concrete-lined basement complex would include a bar, plunge pool, wine cellar, massage therapy room, gym and golf simulator. There would also be two saunas, one of which would be infrared. However, his plans have been fiercely opposed by a group of Conservative councillors who have raised concerns about an 'unacceptable flood risk' from the works, citing their potential to displace groundwater in an already 'high-risk' zone. Construction is also expected to require more than 400 tipper lorries, leading to concerns over the 'gridlock and safety' issues. The councillors, who represents residents in the Chelsea Riverside and Royal Hospital areas, said the basement's construction would have an 'excessive and hazardous' impact, in a letter of objection filed with the council. A group of Mr Dubens's neighbours are also resisting the proposals, which were first reported by local news publication The Chelsea Citizen. One resident called the plans 'outrageous'. Another criticised it as a 'long-term vanity project' installing features that 'may be desired but are unnecessary as the present owners seem not to be in situ very often'. The luxury bunker would stretch underneath an all-weather tennis court in the garden, which sits within a conservation area. An existing pool house on the premises would be replaced with a bigger one, connecting to the underground spa, while an extra basement kitchen would be installed. One resident complained in a letter to the council: 'The owners of this property have already enlarged the house in the very recent past over a period of three years causing enormous disruption and annoyance to their fellow neighbours. 'They have now applied for a major underground new build into the originally Elizabethan Garden from which the tenants in the square benefited ... It is unimaginable what chaos will ensue.' Another neighbour wrote: 'Hundreds of vehicles will be needed to drive up a road which is too narrow to take them. This is an unacceptable risk to the property of the residents.' A spokesman for Mr Dubens has previously said: 'We make every effort to listen to the concerns of our neighbours. In the event that any development work does take place, it will be undertaken with due care and consideration, and in strict accordance with planning regulations.' Mr Dubens made his name selling colour-changing T-shirts in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s, he sold clothes to businesses such as C&A, Marks & Spencer and Sir Philip Green's Arcadia empire. Once a major Tory donor, he went on to invest in several businesses, including Time Out, which he floated on the London Stock Exchange, and model Alexa Chung's fashion label. He set up Oakley Capital in 2002.
The Independent
6 days ago
- Climate
- The Independent
Army searches for man after huge chunk of glacier crushes picturesque Swiss Alpine village
A search and rescue operation is underway in the Swiss Alps for a 64-year-old man who went missing after a massive glacial collapse cascaded down a mountainside, engulfing a significant portion of the village of Blatten. The village had been evacuated a week prior, after signs that the Birch glacier was becoming unstable. However, the missing man was thought to have been in the vicinity on Wednesday when the mountainside collapsed. The resulting debris has scarred the landscape, leaving a trail of rock and earth where trees once stood. Concerns are growing that the debris is now blocking a nearby river, potentially creating a new lake and heightening the risk of flooding. Authorities have deployed the army and airlifted rescue specialists to the area to aid in the search. Swiss officials were struggling to come to terms with the scale of the landslide, which officials said blanketed around 90 per cent of the village. "This is the worst we could imagine. This event leaves us shocked," Albert Roesti, the Swiss environment minister, said late on Wednesday at a press conference in the Valais canton, where the village is. The incident has revived concern about the impact of rising temperatures on Alpine permafrost, even if environmental experts have so far been cautious about attributing the glacier's collapse to the effects of climate change. The degeneration of part of the Birch glacier in the Loetschental valley occurred after sections of the mountain behind it began breaking off in the past few days, and ultimately brought down much of the ice mass with it. Christian Huggel, a professor of environment and climate at the University of Zurich, said that various factors were at play in Blatten where it was known that permafrost had been affected by warmer temperatures in the Alps. He added that the debris was damming up the Lonza river next to the village, saying this could pose a major challenge with up 1 million cubic meters of water accumulating there daily.
CBS News
6 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Key levee project near Yuba City almost complete after more than a decade
YUBA CITY — It's the final stretch for a years-long project to improve a key levee near Yuba City. The Tudor flood risk reduction project is finally wrapping up after more than a decade. It will protect more than 2,000 people, farmland and Highway 99, but officials say there's still more to be done. "You're not going to have unnecessary floods just because the infrastructure didn't get done," said Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Congressman LaMalfa and Assemblyman James Gallagher joined the Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency (SBFCA) in a groundbreaking ceremony to finish shoring up the last 1.6-mile stretch of the Feather River west levee. "When this is done, we will have completed 44 miles of levee improvements. We've already certified 200-year level protection for our urban areas. This project helps protect the southern portion, the rural areas of our basin," said SBFCA executive director Michael Bessette. Construction for the Tudor flood risk reduction project began in 2013 at Shanghai Bend, the same site of the 1955 levee break that claimed the lives of 30 people. "It's an eternal, vigilant effort. You have to always maintain and keep an eye on your levees," Congressman LaMalfa said. This last stretch of the project, which costs $18 million, is locally funded. "The [SBFCA] have been able to do a lot of the projects in about half the time and half the cost of what it takes government entities to do," LaMalfa said. "We're using additional funding to continue to design our bypass levee. We have 5 miles of levee repairs under design right now," Bessette said. Levee work isn't really ever over. The next project will be to shore up the Sutter Bypass. The project was slated to begin in 2027, but with recent FEMA cuts, the SBFCA is still working on securing funds. "We're out that $50 million, so we're looking at other FEMA programs to apply for. Congressman LaMalfa is a huge advocate for this agency, and he's going to D.C. to help pass that funding on to this program," Bessette said. The Tudor flood risk reduction project will be completed by next year.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
German court rejects Peruvian farmer's landmark climate case
A court in Germany has rejected a lawsuit brought by a Peruvian farmer against German energy giant RWE in a long-awaited decision. Saúl Luciano Lliuya had argued that the firm's global emissions contributed to the melting of glaciers in Peru - threatening his hometown of Huaraz with was seeking €17,000 (£14,250) in compensation - money he said he would use to pay for a flood defence project to protect the the higher regional court in the German city of Hamm on Wednesday blocked the case from proceeding further and ruled out any appeals, putting an end to Mr Lliuya's 10-year legal battle. RWE said it was not active in Peru and questioned why it was singled out. It also pointed to its plans to phase out its coal-fired power plants and become carbon neutral by 2040. In their ruling on Wednesday, judges deemed that the flood risk to the property of Mr Lliuya was not high enough for the case to in what climate change groups have hailed as a win, they did say that energy companies could be held responsible for the costs caused by their carbon emissions. While the sum demanded by Mr Lliuya was very low, the case had become a cause celebre for climate change activists, who hoped that it could set a precedent for holding powerful firms to account. The 44-year-old mountain guide and farmer said he had brought the case because he had seen first-hand how rising temperatures were causing glaciers near Huaraz to said that as a result, Lake Palcacocha - which is located above the city - now has four times as much water than in 2003 and that residents like him were at risk of flooding, especially if blocks of ice were to break off from Palcacocha glacier and fall into the lake, causing it to overflow. He alleged that emissions caused by RWE were contributing to the increase in temperature in Peru's mountain region and demanded that the German firm pay towards building a flood Lliuya also said that he chose the company because a 2013 database tracking historic emissions from major fossil fuel producers listed the German energy giant as one of the biggest polluters in Europe. Mr Lliuya's original case was rejected by a lower court in Germany in 2015, with judges arguing that a single firm could not be held responsible for climate change. But in a surprise twist, Mr Lliuya in 2017 won his appeal with judges at the higher regional court, which accepted there was merit to his case and allowing it to lawyers previously argued that RWE was responsible for 0.5% of global CO2 emissions and demanded that the energy firm pay damages amounting to a proportional share of the cost of building a $3.5m-flood defence for Huaraz. Germanwatch, an environmental NGO which backed Mr Lliuya's case, celebrated the court's ruling saying it had "made legal history"."Although the court dismissed the specific claim - finding flood risk to Luciano Lliuya's home was not sufficiently high - it confirmed for the first time that major emitters can be held liable under German civil law for risks resulting from climate change," it said in a statement. The group said it was hopeful that the decision could positively influence similar cases in other countries.
Al Jazeera
7 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
German court rejects Peruvian farmer's climate case against RWE
A German court has thrown out a Peruvian farmer's lawsuit seeking damages from RWE for the German energy utility's alleged role in putting his hometown at risk through climate change. The higher regional court in the western city of Hamm on Wednesday blocked the landmark complaint brought by Saul Luciano Lliuya, 44, who argued that RWE's historical emissions meant it was responsible for the higher flood risk caused by the melting of the Andean glaciers his hometown was facing. 'This is an extraordinary case,' said Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen, reporting from Hamm, Germany. 'For the first time, a person from the Global South is filing a legal case against a company from the Global North, holding it responsible, accountable for global warming and effects of it' on their home country. 'What is interesting in this case is what will be the legal reasoning' as to why the presiding judge decided to throw out this case, said Vaessen. Presenting data from the Carbon Majors database, which tracks historical emissions from chief fossil fuel producers, Lliuya said RWE, Germany's largest energy company, is responsible for nearly 0.5 percent of global man-made emissions since the industrial revolution and must pay a proportional share of the costs needed to adapt to climate change. For a $3.5m flood defence project needed in his region, RWE's share would be about $17,500, according to Lliuya's calculations. The Peruvian farmer, whose family grows corn, wheat, barley and potatoes in a hilly region outside northern Peru's Huaraz city, has said he decided to sue RWE because it is one of Europe's biggest polluters – rather than any particular company projects near his home. RWE, which is phasing out its coal-fired power plants, has said a single emitter of carbon dioxide cannot be held responsible for climate change. Prior to Wednesday's decision, the farmer's lawyer had previously said 'this was a historic verdict' regardless of outcome, as the case notes consisted of 180 pages, meaning the judges took the case 'very seriously', travelling to the affected area in Peru with experts to examine the 'exact effects of global warming on this particular community', said Vaessen. The presiding judge told RWE it 'should have been aware of the effects of their emissions', Vaessen added. This trial 'could be a serious precedent for other people living in the Global South who are suffering a lot more from climate change than in other parts of the world to potentially file cases in the future'.
