Can we really make difference to our health, homes, and the built environment through the planning system?
Improving health has long been important to many planners and urban designers, and it could be argued that healthy planning is as old as planning itself. Health features in both national planning policy and in many local development plans across the country. We are also seeing a number of “healthy places” roles developing in Local Authorities that span both public health and spatial planning, showing that there is an opportunity and desire to work across these two themes. Despite this, and despite some great examples of healthy development nationally and locally, we still see homes and communities being built that are not designed to improve health. They are still car dependent, and disconnected from the essential services, infrastructure and amenities that are the building blocks of a health. We are also still living in communities that lack sufficient green space, are unaffordable or unsustainable, and that could do so much more to meet our social and environmental goals.
Why is this? What are the issues and challenges, and how can Planning and Public Health teams work together to create the healthy, sustainable communities of the future?
Hosted by the Royal Town and Planning Institute, this webinar has been developed with Public Health partners in the North.
