FLOODING experts have warned that deluged streets could become a fact of life after a fresh downpour of rain turned roads into rivers for the second time a fortnight. One of the worst hit areas on Sunday was again the roads around South End Green where the scene resembled a pond on Sunday.

Footage of the scene on Sunday

Residents and restaurant workers faced a desperate scramble to unblock the drains themselves as several inches of rain caused chaos.

Camden Council was inundated with repair requests, forcing it to tell residents to only get in touch in an emergency.

More than seven inches of water rose at the junction near Hampstead Heath overground station, causing massive disruption.

Barriers set up to protect diners from traffic began floating away, vehicles were stopped and business owners feared that water would breach their shop doors. Some, including passers-by and staff at Mimmo la Bufala, walked through floodwater barefoot and used makeshift tools – including upturned brooms, sticks, umbrellas and rods to try and clear drains.

The scenes were similar to those on July 12 as several parts of Camden were under water, causing tens of thousands of pounds of damage to homes and shops.

Dr Jess Neumann, a lecturer in environmental management at the University of Reading, said it’s a picture that could become more and more commonplace due to the climate crisis with more erratic weather patterns as a warmer environment holds more moisture.

She added that Camden may be prone to flooding, with traditional rivers like the Fleet culverted underground, basement extensions and fewer areas for natural absorption with hard surfaces forcing rain water to “run off”.

The original path of the Fleet ran past the site of flooding in South End Green in the past fortnight. Dr Neumann said: “London is always fairly prone to flooding already, just in terms of it having a lot of impermeable surfaces, an inadequate and older drainage network and a number of large communities living close together.”

She said climate change and flooding needed to be a higher priority in planning, and said some of the current drainage infrastructure may need to be expanded or improved to deal with climate change. “London and a lot of other cities need to be more proactive,” she said. “I looked at what [London Mayor] Sadiq Khan is pledging – green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, strengthening policies in the London plan, and the London sustainable development plan – but when you dig into them it’s hard to find details of what they are actually planning to do.”

The first flash earlier this month

Dr Neumann added: “The thing with these kind of floods is that it’s hard to predict where or when it’s going to be. There are people who will have been flooded this weekend, who won’t be flooded for another 20 years because it will happen in a different area, there will be people who will be flooded regularly, and there are people who haven’t been flooded yet who will be flooded next time or the time after.”

Camden’s environment chief, Labour councillor Adam Harrison, said: “The flash flooding we have seen across London in the past few weeks shows how important it is to work across councils, water companies, emergency services and with residents and businesses to deal with extreme weather events. It is clear that the climate emergency is already having a real impact in Camden and in London.”

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “Council teams worked throughout Sunday and overnight to respond to the flooding. Following Met Office forecasts of heavy rain, the council cleared drains and gullies ahead of the rainfall to help the flow of water.”

Thames Water said it could not guarantee flooding would not happen again in the future.

A spokesperson: “We sympathise with everyone affected by the torrential rain and flooding. We had extra staff on standby on Sunday and Monday and offered support to the local authority emergency planning teams, who lead on surface flooding, but we were not called upon as part of their response.

“It’s clearly impossible to provide guarantees where the weather is concerned but we understand residents’ concerns and are in touch with the other agencies, with whom we share responsibility for flooding, to address them.”