Climate scientists at the Met Office and the World Meteorological Organization have been watching the Pacific Ocean closely for the past several months. The signs are now unmistakable: a new El Niño phase is forming, and it is expected to intensify through the summer and into autumn.

For most people in Banbury, El Niño sounds like something that happens on the other side of the world — droughts in Australia, floods in South America, disrupted monsoons in Asia. And it is all of those things. But it is also something that affects us here in Grimsbury and Castle, on Ruscote Avenue and Daventry Road, in our parks and on our roads.

I want to explain what is coming, why it matters locally, and what I believe Oxfordshire County Council must do to prepare.

El Niño is a natural climate pattern driven by the warming of surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. It occurs roughly every two to seven years and typically lasts between nine and twelve months. When it arrives, it disrupts weather patterns across the entire globe.

During an El Niño year, the UK tends to experience:

• Warmer and drier summers, with prolonged heatwaves more likely
• Milder but wetter winters, with higher frequency, higher intensity storms at the beginning of the season, transitioning into less turbulent, but bitterly cold conditions towards the end of the season.
• More volatile weather transitions — sudden shifts from dry spells to intense rainfall

The last significant El Niño event peaked in 2015–16 and contributed to record global temperatures. The one forming now is tracking on a similar trajectory.

Oxfordshire is already one of the driest counties in England. The Thames catchment is particularly vulnerable to summer drought conditions. When El Niño amplifies that dryness, the consequences are felt across every part of daily life.

For residents, it means more days of dangerous heat. We saw in the summer of 2022 what temperatures above 40°C can do — overwhelmed GP surgeries, heat-related hospital admissions, and vulnerable residents, particularly the elderly and those with chronic conditions, struggling in homes that were never designed to stay cool.

For our roads, it means accelerated surface degradation. Tarmac softens and deforms in extreme heat. The potholes we already battle on roads like Southam Road and Middleton Road will worsen faster if we face another record summer. I have already raised this with the Highways team, but the funding picture for reactive maintenance remains deeply inadequate.

For our green spaces, it means stress on trees, parks and verges that provide vital shade and cooling for our neighbourhoods. Grimsbury Reservoir circular and Spiceball Park and the green corridors along the Cherwell are not just pleasant amenities — they are part of our climate resilience infrastructure.

For our most vulnerable residents, it means risk of serious harm. Ruscote Estate has a high proportion of older residents and families in social housing. Many of those homes have been insulated to protect against winter cold snaps, they are not great at losing heat in the summer. In a prolonged heatwave, they become dangerous.

I have raised the issue of extreme heat preparedness at Oxfordshire County Council's Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee, and I will continue to do so. But I want to be clear about what I believe is needed — not just in principle, but in practice.

First, a Banbury-specific heat resilience plan. The county's existing climate adaptation work is largely strategic. We need something operational — a plan that identifies the most at-risk streets and households in this area of Banbury, maps our cooling assets (parks, libraries, community centres), and sets out a clear protocol for when temperatures exceed safe thresholds.

Second, investment in street tree planting and green infrastructure. Trees are the most cost-effective urban cooling tool we have. A mature street tree can reduce local air temperature by up to 8°C through shade and evapotranspiration. We should be planting more of them.

Third, a review of social housing ventilation standards. This is partly a district council matter for Cherwell, but the county has a role in setting expectations and supporting residents. Homes that trap heat are a public health issue, and we should treat them as one.

Fourth, better coordination with the NHS and voluntary sector. During the 2022 heatwave, the response was fragmented. Community groups, GPs, the ambulance service and the council were all working in parallel rather than together. We need a proper multi-agency extreme heat protocol in place before the next summer, not during it.

I want to be honest about something. El Niño is a natural phenomenon — it is not caused by climate change. But climate change is making its effects worse. The baseline temperatures from which El Niño pushes upward are already higher than they were a generation ago. That means the peaks are higher, the risks are greater, and the predictive margin for error is smaller.

Local government cannot solve climate change. But it can make choices that protect people from its worst effects. It can plant trees or cut them down. It can invest in resilient infrastructure or defer maintenance until it fails. It can plan for extreme heat or wait until the ambulances are queuing outside the Horton.

I know which approach I believe in. And I will keep pushing for it at County Hall.

If you are concerned about how your household or street copes in a prolonged heatwave, I want to hear from you. Whether it is a neighbour who lives alone and has no one to check on them, a road that floods when the drains can't cope with sudden downpours, or a park that has lost its tree cover — these are exactly the kinds of local intelligence that help me make the case at county level.

Get in touch via the contact page or come and find me at one of my regular surgeries. The more I hear from residents, the stronger the case I can make.

Further reading: Is El Niño on the Way to Breaking Records? — a closer look at the science behind the 2026 event and why it may be the strongest ever recorded.

Paul-Austin Sargent is the Oxfordshire County Councillor for Banbury Grimsbury & Castle.