It cannot escape people's attention how wet and windy it is at the moment. We are all used to hearing stories of global warming, and I think almost everyone accepts that the planet is getting warmer.
The argument is to what the cause is. There is clearly an upward trend though and since last spring we seemed to have had far more wet and windy days than dry and still.
The Meteorological Office has said that overall the weather is getting drier with less rainfall, something which I don’t think people in Scotland need to hear, or for that matter Whitley Bay or South Shields – see the lighthouse at Tynemouth.
But what has this got to do with property?
Well there are two things, which are interrelated.
Firstly, we can stop doing the things that have a negative effect on climate change, and secondly we can start doing things that have a positive effect. A positive effect may be to take advantage of the warming to introduce solar panels more readily across building structures. The add on cost for post construction introduction can be prohibitive for some, but they can be incorporated into new builds fairly readily. We can look at wind power – people complain of the large wind turbines at Blyth and in the Northumberland and Durham hills, and I think in honesty they do rather spoil the landscape. However, small wind turbines can be used to supplement household energy supplies. Wind turbines and solar panels can be used together, so we can get energy whether its nice and sunny or horrible and windy – which seems a fairly good idea.
But on the flip side of the coin, what can we stop doing that causes problems? Well let’s get as much open earth as we can around our properties. A trend that started in the 1980’s really was to concrete over garden areas, often to provide extra car parking spaces, and also the introduction of imitation turf for ease of garden maintenance. These are all very well and good but water cannot drain through imprinted concrete or through plastic backed fake grass as it can through open earth and grassland. I think its time we all seriously looked at the amount of open natural land we are effectively suffocating by features such as these and see what we can do to reduce them. If we need to create car parking, we can introduce drive lines with open land in the middle. Imitation lawns can be replaced with natural lawns. These will both take a little bit more time in maintenance but the overall affect is a far more pleasing sight, and also has the benefit of attractive smells and bringing wildlife into our gardens.
The same applies to commercial properties. Land that is not being used for the building themselves and for ingress and egress and car parking can be turned over to be ecologically friendly. Would you rather look out of your office window onto a bare concrete or tarmac surface or some greenery or flowers? Nobody would say that the plain tarmac/concrete surface would be preferable.
To say that we can actually control the weather would be an overstatement. But we can temper the climate by acting in a responsible manner for the good of the planet and all life on it.
www.bivbowes.co.uk
