Forgotten tributaries of the Thames, long buried under London’s concrete, may be raised to the surface under plans by advisers to Boris Johnson, the mayor, who want to revitalise the city with more water features and open spaces.

They believe that unearthing stretches of buried rivers and creating new parkland could help to cool the capital, which can get markedly hotter than the surrounding suburbs.

In a speech to industry leaders this week, Johnson will lay out other ambitious plans for making London a more “livable city”, including carving out new parks, confining skyscrapers to certain areas and studying the feasibility of a new airport in the Thames estuary.

The scheme to revive old rivers will start in the suburbs but may attempt to recreate “ornamental stretches” of inner London rivers if possible. The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park, for example, is a remnant of the Westbourne River, a section of which, however, still passes over Sloane Square Tube station in an aqueduct.

One design firm has even proposed that Fleet Street, which crosses the route of the old River Fleet, might turn into a Venetian-style waterway.

Peter Bishop, director of Design for London, the group advising the mayor, said: “When these rivers are opened up I think Londoners will be absolutely amazed. They [the rivers] have been there all the time but you never see them.”

A scheme in Sutcliffe Park, southeast London, has uncovered a section of the River Quaggy, and another project is under way in Lewisham where the Quaggy and the Ravensbourne also flow underground. A new development of flats will restore parts of both rivers within a public space lined by cycleways and footpaths.

“We’re looking at raising the Wandle, which runs from Croydon to Wandsworth, the Bourne, which flows through southeast London, and the Brent, which passes through Wembley,” said Bishop.

Rivers such as the Tyburn and Fleet still run beneath central London. Although reviving them would be impossible along most of their length, designers suggest that ornamental stretches could be created. Adorning London with nature and new open spaces is part of Johnson’s idea to improve the capital’s quality of life to help it to remain competitive.

Sir Simon Milton, the mayor’s planning adviser, said: “Boris’s big theme is quality of life because if London is to compete with the emerging cities of Shanghai and Mumbai, this is what is going to differentiate us. This theme of livability is going to resonate through a lot of the changes in planning and development policy.”

Ideas being floated include closing streets to traffic to create “cycle superhighways”, diverting roads and knocking down buildings to make public spaces.

Milton said he would meet Terry Farrell, the architect, to discuss plans for a tree-lined pedestrian promenade linking Primrose Hill in the north of the city to the Embankment via Oxford Circus and Trafalgar Square. It would be modelled on Las Ramblas, a boulevard in Barcelona.

Another proposal is to create a riverside promenade on the north bank of the Thames to mirror that on the South Bank.

In a submission to Design for London, the architect Lord Foster called for the existing road to be moved underground, opening the surface for pedestrians.

Ian Dungavell, director of the Victorian Society, said: “The Victorians laid out the Embankment as a Parisian-style promenade. It was a way of beautifying the city as well as installing new infrastructure. It would be wonderful to rediscover that spirit.”

The mayor is also determined to improve the quality of new housing. “For the past 30 years we’ve been building rabbit hutches with low ceilings and little storage space,” said Milton.

“In the 1960s, we had minimum standards for space but they’ve been slowly abandoned. Boris wants to reinstate them.”

The most ambitious of Johnson’s schemes is the idea of building a new airport in the Thames estuary. If the plan is found to be feasible, the mayor could lobby the government to explore the proposal.

A source close to the mayor said: “Boris is very keen on the idea. An airport in the estuary would mean nobody living under the flightpath and plenty of space to expand.”

The Thames Estuary Airport Company (Teac), a group promoting the scheme which it is estimated would cost £30 billion, says it could be funded entirely by the private sector. Teac’s plan envisages four runways on an artificial island about three miles northeast of Minster on the Isle of Sheppey.

The pressure being caused by the expansion of Heathrow is growing. Yesterday the Department for Transport confirmed it was considering applying to the European Union for permission to suspend for five years air pollution limits so that an extra 60,000 flights a year could be squeezed through Heathrow.

— The Skylon, the futuristic cigar-shaped structure at the centre of the 1951 Festival of Britain, could be recreated at its original South Bank home under a plan to be unveiled this week backed by the Royal Academy. Jack Pringle, the former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects leading the project, said an anonymous donor had already offered £1.2m towards costs.

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