The benefits of healthy urban design

The Savills Blog

The benefits of healthy urban design

Blog Article

Contacts & Related Articles

The current National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) encourages planning policies and decisions which promote social interaction, are safe and accessible, and enable and support healthy lives through both promoting good health and preventing ill-health. The aim is to deliver strong, vibrant and healthy communities. 

In simple terms, the places we shape, shape us in return. For example, incorporating certain measures within developments that promote physical activity can reduce all-cause mortality, depression and even dementia prevalence. These measures could comprise design elements as simple as the provision of public open space or recreational pathways and cycleways.  

According to the NHS Confederation, investing more in prevention could deliver an £11 billion return on investment, with the top intervention being adapting homes where a serious fall is otherwise likely to occur. New developments can deliver this health prevention measure immediately through the provision of dwellings that meet Building Regulation M4(2) standards: adaptable and accessible dwellings.

The NHS Healthy New Towns programme has shown how large-scale housing developments and regeneration projects can be used as an opportunity to deliver healthy places, with the following 10 principles for healthy place-making remaining applicable to new developments today:

  • Plan ahead collectively
  • Assess local health and care needs and assets
  • Connect, involve and empower people and communities
  • Create compact neighbourhoods
  • Maximise active travel
  • Inspire and enable healthy eating
  • Foster health in homes and buildings
  • Enable healthy play and leisure
  • Develop health services that help people stay well
  • Create integrated health and wellbeing centres
Health in planning

Despite the influence healthy urban design has on the health and wellbeing of communities, the consideration of health in planning is often limited to assessing health risks or impacts arising from developments, such as the effect of changes in air quality, noise or transport. This is often delivered through a dedicated human health chapter within an Environmental Impact Assessment, or a stand-alone Health Impact Assessment. 

Whilst it is important to ensure developments will not have a negative impact on human health, the role of health promotion and healthcare (such as the provision of accessible and adaptable dwellings; specialist housing; special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) schools; and dementia-friendly design measures, to name a few) is often given little to no weight in the planning balance. This means that no distinction is made between projects that go above and beyond to prevent, reduce and delay the need for clinical intervention and social care, and those that don’t. 

So what can be done?
  1. We need to recognise the influence and enduring health legacy that planning has. Good or bad, a project will continue to influence health and wellbeing for generations to come.
  2. Always consider health in terms of health prevention, health protection and health promotion. It is only when you explore all three that you really embed public health into planning.

    In practice, this involves assessing the impact of health determinants, such as air quality or noise (preventing ill-health), considering access to healthcare (protecting health) and incorporating healthy urban design measures, from the masterplanning design stage to the final design of individual areas (promoting good health). 
  3. Always consider local circumstance, priority and need. Read your Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, and reach out to your public health teams. Nobody will have better tacit knowledge and insight to inform healthy urban design solutions.
  4. Widen your perspective. Health and health needs vary; widening your understanding and empathy can greatly improve your awareness of circumstance, behavioural barriers and subsequent design solutions.

    Ultimately, new developments offer a blank canvas with an abundance of opportunities for what to create and how to support a healthy, vibrant and cohesive community, be that new or existing. By considering the local health circumstance and focusing on health prevention, health protection and health promotion, it is possible to generate significant and enduring health and wellbeing benefits through planning. 

Further information

Contact Millie Potter

 

Recommended articles