13/01/2014 Inside Out London

Hello there. . I'm Matthew Wright. You're watching Inside Out London.

Here's what's coming up on tonight's show. We find out how we coped after

the torrential rain that battered the region. I got a pump on

downstairs and as fast as we're pumping the water out, it is coming

back in. I spoke to a neighbour who lived here for 30 years and she says

she has never seen it like this before. We meet the artists helping

Luton overcome years of negative press. When I sit and look around,

Luton, all I hear is extremism and tension and quickly I'm drawing to

using my art to try and paint a different picture. We reveal the

secret world of the capital's urban food foragers. Look what we have

managed to find. Several different types of mushroom. This is

horseradish. We have leaves that you can use in salad and two enormous

bags of apples. Torrential rain has given most of us

a battering recently with some parts of the Home Counties severely hit by

flooding. Downstream, the Thames Barrier had to close several times

to protect the capital and the Environment Agency has warned that

the legacy of all that bad weather could last for days. Marc Ashdown

has been finding out how we have all been coping.

To the west of London, it is the latest area to be struck by the

flooding. Four days ago, this was a park for walking dogs and community

events. Now, it is completely disappeared. Now, ordinary airline,

there is a trib orl yarl, there is a trickle of water and grass. So the

first problem is how long it will take the water to recede. That could

be many weeks and only then can the clear`up begin. Before that, the

rescues. Many elderly residents had to be evacuated after the water rose

up overnight. I have got my wellies on. Take me up as far as you can go.

Just keeping the water level manageable and away from electrics

is a 24 hour job. In seven years of living here, Kate has never flooded

until now. One day it was just a little bit in the garden and then I

was standing in my office and the water was coming up through the

corners. It is coming under the house, not just through the doors

and it is coming in very fast as you see. I have got a pump on downstairs

and as fast as we're pumping the water out, it's coming back in. I

spoke to a neighbour who lived here for 30 years and she said she has

never seen it like this before. But extreme weather like this is

expected to become more frequent which led to serious questions about

the need to adapt. We have been building in the flood plain and

we've not really been building in such a way to take account of what

looked like there are going to be more frequent floods. People expect

the Government to protect them and I think there is a need to increase

awareness that now that that probably is not going to happen in

some cases. The flooding started many miles away

to the south of London, back on Christmas Eve. Thousands awoke to

find their homes knee`deep or worse. In Reigate, in Surrey, the Middleton

family had to grab what they could and move into a hotel. We filmed

with them minutes before they left. Santa is going to know where to fin

us even if we are at the hotel. Two weeks on and I caught up with the

family of four. Still living out of a suitcase a after a hastily

arranged Christmas with friends, they are trying to juggle family

life mainly in the car and in a hotel room. Back in at their house,

and the water has finally gone, but with it, the full picture of the

damage is emerging. All the water had drained away and you can see

from the tide marks that it got up to four inches. It could be four

months before the floors are down and life gets back to normal, but

this is the third time they flooded in the past few years which brings

longer term concerns. If we want to sell the house, obviously, the value

will have fallen and the insurance doesn't cover that and also what if

the insurers decide they the don't want to insure us anymore and those

are our biggest worries. I think we have got to look at ways of

preparing the house better. The sandbags were delivered after the

water had come into the house. So as you see, when you were downstairs,

the sandbags aren't stopping the water coming in now at all. For many

people living around here, this is the worst flooding they have ever

seen. Over the past two weeks, hundreds, if not thousands of people

across the region, have been forced from their homes because of

flooding. The worst they have ever had here was in 1894 and this plaque

commemorates the high water mark of the river. If that was to happen

here, tens of thousands of people could find their houses underwater.

Since then, things have never got that bad, but the worst flooding in

living memory to hit the capital was in March 1947. After a severe

winter, much of the Thames Valley was engulfed as the River Thames

burst its banks across the city and beyond. It hit many town centres and

the Army had to be drafted in just to keep things moving.

In recent years, Londoners have become adept at keeping the water at

bay from sandbags and make`shift emergency defences like here in

Guildford to this newly devised floating sensor which measures

minute by minute how deep the water is getting. Some will always make

the best of a bad situation and of course, London boasts one of the

largest and most effective pieces of flood defence ever conceived. The

Thames Barrier. Built in the 1980s without it great swathes of Central

London would by now, have repeatedly flooded. Ten gates as high as a five

storey building, holding back 9 ,000 tonnes of water. Recently, it has

been busy, closed for 11 successive high tides and with the danger of

more flooding to come, is it now enough? There are calls for more

forward thinking when new homes are planned. I'm concerned about some of

the building that's taking place particularly where we know that the

area is definitely in a flood plain. The problem we have in the UK and in

London is that we have very little space to build new property. The

first step is understanding how the flooding spreads and that's where

satellites come in. We have a satellite image taken over the South

East of England. Armed with the knowledge these images provide, the

authorities can examine where the flooding struck and developed over

the past few weeks. Here we have on the left the river, well you can

hardly see the river at all. But on the right`hand example here, you can

see the river is extremely flooded. It is very, very severe. It is

essential information for planning future flood defences. We're

probably still in the early days of really exploiting this technology to

its fullest as we have more images available of what is happening on

the ground, with much higher frequency, we are finding new ways

to work with them and identify the problem areas. The past few weeks

have clearly shown the areas most vulnerable. Councils weigh the

desperate need for more homes with the dangers of yet more development

in the flood plains. Back here, there isn't much confidence in the

Environment Agency's ability to protect existing homes. They have

told me they could not stop several, many thousands of houses, flooding

if we had the level of flood that we had in 1940s. There was a number of

different ways now that buildings are being designed with the sort of

flood risk in mind. So there are many things that can be done as far

as adapting our buildings and designing our buildings and I think

that's something else we need to look at more in the future, is how

do we design our societies if we are having to live with this increased

risk of flooding? Marc Ashdown reporting there. Still

to come on tonight's show: Foraging is by no means restricted

to London's open areas. It is not look more busy and urban than that,

but in an area like this, there is plenty of food to be foraged. Just

off the high street, you can find apples and blackberries and

meddlers. Luton suffered plenty of negative

press with rioting and social deprivation never far from the

headlines. Author Sarfraz Manzoor grew up there. He went back to see

if Luton put some of its troubles behind it. This is my hometown,

Luton. I grew up here during the 80s in Marsh Farm and since then there

has been riots and racial tension in the town. It is an image that haunts

Luton. All I dreamt about was leaving and as soon as I was 18, I

did. I became a journalist and felt strongly about my childhood in the

town, I wrote a book about it. I thought of Luton as my past, not my

future. I live in London now and in a modest two bedroomed flat, but

with house prices being the way they are, I can't imagine being able to

buy a house there, that's made me wonder whether I can imagine living

back in Luton. Whether the things I love about London, the creativity,

the cultural richness, whether I could find those things here, but is

it really possible to go back home again?

I was a student at Luton Sixth Form College 25 years ago. When I was

studying for my A`levels, the reason I wanted to pass my exams was

because it meant I would get out of Luton. How do people feel today? I

have come back today to find out. What's the first thing you hear

about when I say Luton? Luton Airport! Where do you say you are

from when people ask? Milton Keynes. I have got family in Milton Keynes.

I would never say I am from Milton Keynes. I am from New Manor. No one

is going to build a good reputation. How many people would it take to big

up Luton? Luton has an image problem, but there are successful

creative people out there, bigging up Luton. One person who is so proud

of Luton he wears it as a badge of honour is Dominic Allen. He is an

artist whose work is inspired by every day life in his hometown and

the satchel Gallery in London bought his work. He lives in London, but

comes back to support Luton Town. He added Luton to his name. I changed

my name, not by depoll yesterday, I think that, I don't think people

took it seriously to begin with. But when people sta funding it and

buying name, for me it validates it, it is taken seriously. I don't...

Are they envious or are they like, "Oh my god, we come from really

creative places and you come from Luton?" They are really wary and

unknowing about it. I know everyone has an opinion on Luton. Usually not

until recently that positive. So that's why I wanted to wear that as

a kind of badge of honour. When I was growing up, this was a

place of terror. There was some of this closed mindedness is not the

community I want. Both these things are the things that pulled me away

from Luton. It is interesting. There is two things now which bring you

back to Luton, my parents and this place, I think. I think, I will also

say that I think that, I think there is a lot more going on. There is a

much bigger conversation taking place between what is here, this

football club and realising that actually where it sits in the

community and how the community has changed around it. Another artist

who portrays a different view of Luton is Ben Hodson. Ben Hodson

produced a piece of work called Lutopia. What is Lutopia? It is a

project I started back in 2007 and it was this basic idea that Luton

gets a lot of bad, negative press. I'm sure you have heard a lot of it

yourself and the project was investigating what Luton was.

Looking at the every day, not necessarily beautiful parts of

Luton, but looking at the mundane, looking at the parks and the

roundabouts and finding ways to express the beauty in the mundane.

When I sit and live in Luton and I look around you, all you hear is

extremism, tensions all these things going on. So very quickly I'm

drawing to using my art to paint a different picture. The Luton that

I'm seeing is very different from the media stereotype. Certain areas

have benefited from investment to create a more bee hemian feel. Luton

Culture is an independent charity that has been behind the

regeneration. The former hat factory has been transformed into an art

centre. The punk band UK Decay never lost touch with their roots in Luton

and they played here recently. I met their lead singer, Steve Abbott. He

was an old school friend for this man. What changed Hackney around was

people doing it for themselves and the authorities chasing, you know,

trying to provide some kind of infrastructure and I see the same

thing is happening in Luton. Luton, high town, reminds me of Dulston. If

I was to meet you guys in five or ten years, how do you think the

artistic community and what's going on artistically, how do you think it

will have changed? Well, I think Luton will create artists. You see

it now, you look at the local shows on here. They are not like local

shows. It is a much broader sort of pallet of the arts than it was in

our day of the it was just music and a little bit of dra mall. `` drama?

You will have more people like him who started off in London, but big

in London and big in New York. There is a magnet of Luton and I meet

people... What's bringing you back? Coming from somewhere that makes you

proud. It means something out there. It is unique.

Although Luton clearly still has real problems, listening to them, I

almost started believing it is set to be a creative Mecca, but then I'm

reminded of the a mixed feelings of the students at my old college. Is

Luton on its way up or down? I think that Luton will get worse before it

gets better. I think it is going up. There is support for people who are

in bad situations. There is if new houses being built. There is new

schools being built. There is a university that's doing well.

When I started making this film I had no idea what I would find. What

I have found is a thriving, stimulating town that's a world away

from the tedium of my childhood. I love living in London, but I think I

could imagine returning to Luton. There is just something very special

about home towns. Like families, we don't choose them, we spend our

childhoods kicking against them and once we have forgiven them, we can't

help, but love them. Quinces, hops and asparagus. Not

things you would expect to be growing wild on your doorstep, but

urban London can be an edible treasure trove if you know where to

look and foraging for food has never been a more popular activity. We

sent Wendy Hurrell to dig into the story. Up early to catch the best

time of day, I'm on Hackney Marshes with John. A man who knows a thing

about foraging. Try this, Wendy. Thank you. Something to eat. It is

very peppery. It should be. It is horseradish. A nice piece of beef

with that. Or horse! We infuse vodka and use it for making your bloody

Marys so then you don't have to put Tabasco with it.

Known as the Poacher, for John, foraging has become a way of life. I

don't like being in indoors, I can wander around out here. I have got

nobody telling me what to do. I can get on and do what I want to do. He

learnt to forage at a very young age. My grandad and my dad and my

uncle taught me how to fish and I got in with a group of kids that, we

used to go every weekend. Are these any good to eat? Yeah, yeah, they

are really good. They are fairy rings. They have got a poisonous

cousin though. It is fair to say you have to be careful with mushroom

picking? You hear every year of people doing it for years and

experts and stuff and they make one mistake and that's all you need. My

own secret larder. But is foraging legal? Well, common`law allows

foraging for personal use as long as it is in a public place. Some

councils or parks have bye`laws though. It is common land so as long

as you are not taking too much then it is absolutely fine. Next on our

forage list are apples. I think John can do this one on his own! It is a

good haul isn't it. We have been here for the morning and look what

we have managed to find. Several different types of mushroom. This is

horseradish. We have got leaves that you can use in salad and rose hips

and two bags of apples. This is a part of London I know quite well and

to be honest I would have walked straight past all of this. John is

going to carry on foraging and I'll catch up with him a bit later on.

Foraging is by no means restricted just to London's open areas. It is

everywhere. This is Clapham. It doesn't get more busy and urban than

this. But even in an area like this, there is plenty of food to be

foraged. Just off the high street, you can find apples, blackberries

and meddler. `` meddlers. Behind the high street is an area with rich

pickings. We've got meddlers. If you took me on a culinary tour of

Peckham right now, what would we find? Apes and pears and quinces.

There is asparagus growing up the road in a churchyard. Penny was

forced to give up work and began foraging out of necessity. Two young

kids to look after. Fruit and veg was expensive and I was on a very

tight budget and had to claim benefits at the time and there was

fruit all around us that nobody was using. Because it is urban, it is

not, it is not like the traditional foraging, you know, we are kind of

utilising and adapting to our space and helping to look after it. I

think and valuing it, you know. The majority of foragers like John and

Penny are respectful. They only take what they need and they are not

doing any harm, but there is a minority who have got greedy and

they are posing a risk to the environment and themselves. Here is

a small fairy ring. Paul Thomson is the superintendent for Epping Forest

where mushroom picking is illegal. It is a Site of Special Scientific

Interest. The fungi needs to be protected. It is a food source for a

lot of other animals in the forest. There is an assetic argument. This

year, the forest floor is a kaleidoscope of beautiful colours.

Maybe a few years ago, people would pick this for breakfast and under

our previous licensing keep that would have been fine. These days,

people are coming and picking that sort of quantity which is not fine.

These were confiscated yesterday from pickers in the forest. All

these mushrooms have been seized for from illegal pickers. So far, nine

people have been prosecuted and a further 19 are awaiting court

hearings, but the high market value of these fungi means it is a risk

some pickers are prepared to take. Our intention now would be to return

this material back to the forest so the spores can get into the forest

soil and we will put them back in such a way that they can't be picked

again. Back in Hackney and John has decided the time has come to harvest

something really quite special. It is a chicken in the woods. It is one

of my favourite mushrooms to collect. I have had chicken in the

woods up to 21 kilos in weight which at the time they were going for

about ?20 on the kilo. John is able to make some money from foraging,

but what he really enjoys is a bit of bartering. Trading is good.

Trading is fun. I got a friend of mine who gets good quality meat so I

will swap him mushrooms for meat. What's the most unusual thing you

bartered? My tattoo. I can trade for anything. I supplied somebody

yesterday with a load of mushrooms and he hand makes shoes.

John is taking his foraged food to Stefan at his restaurant in Stoke

Newington? With Stefan, I take him stuff. I get paid a small amount of

money that I ask him for and then if I want to go out for a meal, I can

phone up and book a table and go and have a meal on them. Of I acquire a

lot of knowledge with this guy. He brings something that you can't find

somewhere else. You have something spicy there. You have something like

meaty, acidic there which is very different and then you have that

wild salad. I am always trying to incorporate what he brings with what

I already have in the fridge. I am looking forward to sampling all this

later! Penny, unlike John, doesn't trade or sell her stuff. She runs a

small community project called Grow Wild which with turns fruit that

would otherwise go to waste into delicious jams and chutneys. These

are cookers from Nunhead Lane. These are New Cross grapes. They are from

an escaped vine! That's very good. Back in Stoke Newington, chef,

Stefan, is plating up our foraged food. I cooked horseradish in white

wine. Some of the white rocket. Oh yes. Yes. And the last touch is the

rose hip. It is caramelised in butter, sugar and water. Here we go.

Now we can eat it. So we've got cordials from South`East London.

This is a terrific feast. What do you think of the mushroom, John?

Yeah, it is really good. Fantastic, really nice. Cheers. Cheers,

everyone. Here is to London's free bits and bobs.

I have heard some people are signing up for foraging courses and although

I have never tried caramelised rose hip before, that meal looked

delicious. Well, that's nearly all for this evening, but xwfr we go ``

before we go, let's have a quick look at what's coming up next week.

With energy prices rocketing, we reveal how more and more people are

stealing gas and electricity. I don't know if you can see that, it

has got teeth that have been taken off. So only a fraction of the gas

has been recorded on that index. We join the British Gas detectives as

they hunt down the power thieves. One landlord has got over 50

properties. All of them have been hot wired. The theft of supply can

run into millions. We find out how neighbourhoods are generating their

own electricity to beat the bills. We are interested in both the power

that it produces and the heat. The heat that's normally wasted in our

power stations, but we capture it here and put it into a new network

of heat pipes. It is like a very large central heating system for a

community. And that's all from this week's Inside Out London. If you

have missed any of tonight's show, just go to the iplayer. Thanks very

much for watching. I will see you again next week.

Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your 90`second update.

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