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How are you handling the heat? London is once again frying in highs of 34C – our homes are sweltering, our buses and tube carriages are stifling and you can’t even sit in a beer garden without sweating buckets. Besides dipping into a lido or filling up on ice cream, the one thing that can offer some sweet relief in these brutal temperatures is air conditioning.
But that’s not always easy to find. Of the more than 280,000 pubs, cafes, restaurants and bars across England and Wales, just 8,000 of them are confirmed to have air con. The good news for us is that 1,400 of those are here in London – and now there’s a map that shows you exactly where they are.
Where’s Cool maps out every pub, bar, cafe and restaurant in England and Wales that definitely has AC. To find out whether venues have AC, the creators of the map check data from the public MHCLG Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). If a place’s EPC says it has cooling then it’s tagged as confirmed. The site also relies on users confirming whether there is AC somewhere or not. Once several people have agreed that there is, then the venue is included.
Thomas Chivers, Where's Cool creator said: ‘I created this map in May, in the middle of the first heatwave. I'm really glad I did, because we're now somehow on our third and it's only July. I needed to find somewhere cool to work because my flat was far too hot to work in.
‘For those of us, like me, who work from home without aircon, it's become a necessity to know where we can go with our laptops when the temperature starts to creep above the 30 degree mark. Hopefully the Where's Cool map can be useful in helping others find a place to go and cool off , as well as helping out the hospitality venues who can always do with the customers!’
You can check out the map for yourself here.
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