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‘It’s like an oven’: Life in Britain’s hottest

neighbourhoods
By Harriet Bradshaw, Rob England & Deirdre Finnerty

BBC News

16 hours ago

UK heatwaves
BBC NEWS

The temperature inside Jorda's flat has hit 30C before midday for the past
three days. Though she keeps the blinds closed and a fan whirring in the
corner, her home feels stuffy and airless. With the UK predicted to have its
warmest day ever on Tuesday, she worries she won't be able to cope.

"The flat gets boiling hot," she says. "It's like an oven."

Jorda is 43 and lives on the top floor of a new-build block in west London with
her two young daughters. Her small, concrete balcony, overlooking a
neighbouring block and a stretch of busy road, has no shade. Even after the
sun sets, traffic noise and exhaust fumes make it difficult to use the space.

"There is still no air, and there is so much dust," she explains. Instead, she
shelters in the bathroom, cooler than the rest of the flat.

Jorda's neighbourhood, with a high proportion of people on low incomes or

out of work, is one of the most deprived areas of the country. And people
living in places like these across Britain are most at risk from severe heat.

Analysis by the BBC of satellite data from 4 Earth Intelligence and figures on
relative poverty in England, Scotland and Wales, suggests people in deprived
areas are more than twice as likely to live in places which are significantly
hotter than neighbouring places.

The difference is down to a phenomenon known as the urban heat island

effect, where buildings and roads absorb and retain heat, and become
significantly hotter than surrounding areas with shade or green space.
For Jorda, the heat is very challenging. She is frequently hospitalised with
asthma attacks that leave her gasping for breath, and her symptoms are made
worse by hot weather. Her condition has meant she had to give up the hair-
styling job she loved and has limited her ability to leave the house.

"At any moment I could get a severe asthma attack." In the summer, she can't
relax inside or outside her flat. "I live in fear," she says. "That's not what you
call a life."
BBC

Jorda has severe asthma, which gets worse in hot weather

Her neighbourhood is particularly susceptible to heat. According to 4 Earth

Intelligence's heat hazard scale that goes from one to five, Jorda's postcode
area is a five. On one day last July, the area where she lives was a full 5C hotter
than in a nearby park.

BBC analysis estimates that six million people live in places at risk of higher
heat across Britain during the summer months. And it's likely to get worse.
Climate change is causing temperatures to rise across the UK, which is
experiencing longer and more frequent heatwaves.
Extreme heat is dangerous to everyone, causing heat exhaustion and heat
stroke, and increasing the risk of a heart attack. But some people are affected
more than others.

What does hot weather do to the body?

"Anyone with severe illness or underlying conditions, older people, babies and
the disabled can get overheated quite quickly," says Anthony Costello,
professor of global health and sustainable development at University College
London.

"If you're in a top floor flat, if you're homeless, if you work outside and you
have to do a lot of physical exertion, you are very vulnerable," he says.

And people who live in deprived areas tend to have poorer health to begin
with, and higher rates of chronic conditions associated with greater
vulnerability to heat.
 Andrea Moore lives with COPD and struggles with her conditions in the heat

For Andrea Moore, 150 miles away in Cardiff, hotter summers are an
increasing concern. The former catering worker has COPD, a chronic lung
condition that causes difficulty breathing, chest pain and chest infections. Like

Jorda, Andrea's condition worsens in the heat and on Monday, as Wales

recorded its hottest day on record, she sat indoors and felt rough.

"There's a lot more traffic around and heat radiates off the buildings," Andrea
says. "I close the curtains, and if it gets really bad, on comes the fan with a
bottle of frozen water in front of it."

More than one in six neighbourhoods in Cardiff are classified as heat/high

deprivation hotspots according to BBC analysis, and Andrea's first-floor flat
falls within one of them.

Her neighbourhood has a high number of people with poor health and
unsuitable housing, and one day last summer, it was 5C hotter than the nearby
Sevenoaks Park.
While staying indoors helps, our homes are not built for more frequent
heatwaves, says Rohinton Emmanuel, professor of sustainable development at
Glasgow Caledonian University.

Changing how cities and towns are built could help us to cope better, he says.
That means having buildings at different heights to create shade and create a
breeze, for example, and planting more trees. Green roofs and green walls can
reduce the amount of heat absorbed by buildings, as can using less glass and
retrofitting buildings with lighter coloured and more reflective materials.

"Cities take considerable time to change. We are already late," he says. "We
need to take action now."

As many as 4.6 million homes overheat in England, suggests a recent survey

from Loughborough University. But until this summer, no rules governed
overheating in new buildings. The UK's Climate Change Committee, which
tracks the government's progress on its climate commitments, predicts that
heat-related deaths could triple over the coming decades without
government action.

The summer of 2020 saw the most deaths related to heatwaves since records
began in 2004, with more than 2,200 deaths in over-65s when temperatures
hit 33C.
 UK heat deaths to triple without action on housing

Scotland is not known for its hot weather, but when the sun blasts through the
windows of Liz Andrews' flat five miles from Glasgow centre, it can quickly
become intolerable.

"You can literally feel the heat as you walk through the front door," she
explains.

BBC NEWS

Liz Andrews has lived in the same social housing flat since the 70s

Liz lives on the ground floor of a 1930s tenement block in Yoker, in a

neighbourhood where lots of people live in poor quality housing. Over the
years, front lawns have been covered over with gravel, and she says it makes
her home sweat in the summer.

As the cost of living rises, simple solutions like turning on the fan are more
complicated. Liz is on a pre-paid meter and has seen her energy prices soar to
about £40-£50 a week. Shutting the blinds brings the added expense of
switching on the lights. And travelling to the nearest big park means spending
money on bus fares.

"We really feel the pinch with the heat. It's all very well to say have an ice lolly
but sometimes you can't afford ice lollies," Liz says.

Glasgow City Council says protecting residents against overheating is a key

concern. It has recently introduced a climate plan which notes that the city's
housing is underprepared for hotter temperatures and acknowledges the need
to address equality of access to green spaces.

Liz' neighbourhood (left) is a four on the heat scale created by 4EI. One day last July it was 5C hotter than a
nearby neighbourhood (right)

It's a problem Liz is keenly aware of. Her son Simon, who has a learning
disability, is supported to tend a community allotment in Drumchapel - it's
cooler there, but it is a 25-minute bus-ride away from their home. Liz wants
more open spaces "on her doorstep".

"All the wee spaces, they're just building houses on them," she says.

In Harlesden, Jorda faces similar issues. For the moment, she doesn't want to
move away from the hospital that has been treating her asthma when the next
attack could be just around the corner.

But she says she feels unsafe in the small green space near her home with
little grass, and thinks a more accessible park or community garden might
help.

"I don't mind living in an area like this if I could breathe. Just to be in a bit of
fresh air… it would be better than this."

About the data

Where is the data from?

The potential heat hazard score for small geographical areas - known as a
Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOA) - was calculated by 4 Earth
Intelligence, who measured the average land surface temperature over a
sample of days in the past three summers across Great Britain.
Deprivation data was taken from the latest English, Scottish and Welsh Indices
of multiple deprivation (IMD). Each IMD is the nation's official measure of
relative deprivation, or poverty, and is weighted heavily towards income,
employment, education, and health.

What does each heat hazard score mean?

Each score, ranging from one to five, is an indicator of how likely it is that your
area will experience high temperatures during hot weather, when compared
with other areas in your surrounding neighbourhood.

How was the score calculated?

A statistical method published by academics was used to standardise land

surface temperatures, which involved combining satellite images for different
dates over the past three years.

The temperature data was then adjusted to consider the different average
temperatures of each region, to highlight hotter areas across the country,
while accounting for varying climates.

Each heat hazard score represents different sized groups, as indicated in the
scale, to highlight the places where the temperature in an area was higher
compared to the rest of Great Britain, once the temperature had been
normalised by region.

1 = 40th percentile and lower, if you lined up all the areas in Great Britain
by heat hazard score, your neighbourhood is in the coolest 40% of
normalised temperatures. This also means 60% of neighbourhoods have a
higher heat hazard score than yours

2 = 40th - 70th Percentile, your neighbourhood is in the mid-range for

normalised temperatures in Great Britain. 40% of neighbourhoods have a
lower heat hazard than yours but 30% have a higher one

3 = 70th - 90th Percentile, your neighbourhood is towards the upper end of

the scale for normalised temperatures in Great Britain. 70% of
neighbourhoods have a lower heat hazard than yours but 10% have a
higher one

4 = 90th - 99th Percentile, nine out of 10 neighbourhoods in Great Britain

have a lower heat hazard than yours and only 1% have a higher one

5 = 99th Percentile, your neighbourhood has among the highest heat

hazard scores in Great Britain. 99% of neighbourhoods have a lower heat
hazard score than yours

Normalising the temperatures of each region before calculating the score

Normalising the temperatures of each region before calculating the score
means the data highlights hotter areas in different parts of the country,
despite having different climates.

How did you combine heat and deprivation data?

The heat hazard score was calculated for LSOAs, which also have a population
estimate and a deprivation score in its nation's IMD.

IMD scores are split into five even groups by nation, or quintiles, and each area
is given a score from one to five based on its level of deprivation. One being
the most deprived, or poorest, areas and five being the least.

The BBC then combined the heat data by nation with the population estimates
to calculate the number of individuals estimated to live in each heat hazard

score.

Taking the areas with a heat hazard score of four or five, the top 10% of heat
hazard scores in Great Britain, and also areas with deprivation scores of one
and two, the 40% most deprived areas, a calculation was then made to reveal
the percentage of people living in higher hazard areas which were also more
deprived.

Produced by Rob England, Harriet Bradshaw, Libby Rogers, Jana Tauschinski,

Deirdre Finnerty, Wesley Stephenson, Yazmina Garcia and Steffan Messenger.
Development by Alexander Ivanov, Marcos Gurgel and Becky Rush. Data provided
by 4 Earth Intelligence.

More on this story

Is the UK getting hotter?
11 July

What does hot weather do to the body?

1 day ago

How hot is it where you are?

16 June

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