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Bristol has promised to green 100 school playgrounds by 2030. A visit to three sites shows how shade, drainage and pupil heat stress are being measured — and why maintenance, not just planting, may decide whether the programme survives.
From Cornish sea walls to Dorset dunes, councils and the Environment Agency are recasting coastal defence plans after another winter of saturated ground and tidal surges. The choices now facing communities are less about whether the coast will change than about who pays, who decides and what regional sustainability can realistically mean.
A pilot on the Somerset Levels is paying farmers to hold winter water in temporary wetlands, leaky dams and floodplain meadows. With winter 2026/27 approaching, the question is whether nature-based flood defence can scale, who funds it, and what it means for farm businesses and downstream towns.