In my ongoing quest to find built environment practitioners taking on public health challenges in the communities they serve, I rarely experience what I did last week – humility and optimism. Twice. I attended two events, both · London based · Focused on addressing a specific challenge through multidisciplinary expertise · Evidence led · Grounded in a belief that homes and places impact our health The first, on Tuesday, was a meeting of the Healthy

What would you say if you were told that a 22-acre brownfield site in London’s zone 3, well connected to overground, underground and bus services, and located on a beautiful stretch of the river Thames is going to remain undeveloped for the foreseeable future? To top it off, it has full planning consent for 1100 homes after a ten-year planning saga. That’s what’s happening in Mortlake, SW London. Coincidentally, during the same week that the Mayor of London launched his Dra

When the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames announced its intention to remove Lime from its ebike provision in March, residents raised a petition in disapproval which LBRuT called out as a response to “corporate bullying”. This did not go down well. As I expressed in a letter to the Times, the petition was very much resident-led from those in the north of the borough, who are disproportionately impacted as they regularly transit across boroughs, facing what comic Dara O

Roy Lilley knows a lot about healthcare provision in the UK, and he shares it four times a week with relevance, facts and humour through a widely distributed newsletter. His knowledge and insight come from experience leading two health authorities, running the NHS Managers network and supporting the Institute of Health and Social Care Management. He's also been an active participant in local government, having served as Councillor and Mayor in Surrey Heath Borough. And he w

Over the last six months I’ve written twice about data centres, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities that they present to local communities and the trends that are developing in the discourse around them. The most visible and audible trend -- community-led resistance to data centres – is accelerating -- and, according to The Economist, the backlash is just getting started: "The fiercest fights so far have been in America, where protests against data centres h

The record heat in the UK last week inspired lots of discussion about its impact on our health – with particular focus on how our built environment – homes, workplaces, schools, hospitals and transport infrastructure - are ill-suited to extreme heat and harming our health. This has led to animated discussion on the need for air conditioning in our buildings, with heated (!) exchanges over why we don’t have air conditioning in UK homes and, inevitably, to our overly regulat

Last week the Soho Society, a civic society “for all the people that have Soho in their lives” voted at its AGM for a new licensing mandate, meaning it will challenge all new applications for bars and restaurants in the area, including renewals of existing licences. It will also object to any venue that wishes to open beyond “core hours”, which Westminster council decrees end at 11pm. The society claims the area in central London has seen an intensification of nightlife and

This week saw the highest recorded temperatures for May in the UK -- 34.8C on Bank Holiday Monday, surpassed on Tuesday at 35.1C. Both temps were recorded at Kew Gardens in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames where, I can assure you having taken the photo above, residents were not that bothered. Richmond abounds in green spaces, blue spaces, social spaces and sporting spaces and, not surprisingly, has one of the highest rate of healthy life expectancy in the countr

Last week’s elections created a new patchwork of political control of local authorities across the country, reflecting our emerging five-party system. London is particularly striking in its new patchwork comprising all of the five parties, and most noticeably the number of Labour-controlled councils reduced from 21 to 8. While its all change for councils and their leadership, the challenges facing local authorities remain distinctly unchanged. And in the case of public infr

Earlier this year, I decided to push my boundaries in listening to locals, and agreed to stand in the May local elections as a Conservative candidate for Richmond Council in SW London, representing the area where I live, Mortlake & Barnes Common. I had three motivations. First, I live adjacent to a major redevelopment site (the largest in Richmond and one of the largest in London) which has finally received planning consent after more than a decade of negotiation and a seri

I launched Build for Health last year to link up practitioners from multiple disciplines who, firstly, supported the principle that our health is impacted by the built environment, and, secondly, were motivated to change their practice to accommodate this. It followed a programme of research from the Institute of Health Equity , which gave evidence to the role of the property sector in supporting health & wellbeing. Acknowledging the scale, influence and resources of t

As we mark the centenary of the launch of the Peckham Experiment, I am reminded of a line from Alexandre Dumas in The Count of Monte Cristo : “Ideas never die, Sire, and, though they may slumber for a time, they wake up stronger than when they fell asleep." In July 2023 I wrote about the Peckham Experiment , having learned about it while seeking evidence to support appeals to MPs for their vote on the Healthy Homes Bill . This was a Private Member’s Bill developed by th

It’s a rare day now when we don’t see something in our news feeds about AI and, increasingly, the infrastructure required to power its development and deliver its benefits. The AI Opportunities Action Plan produced last year for the government set out targets to ensure the UK can lead in this frontier technology, and one year on many of these have or are being achieved . A central feature of this plan is the development of data centres across the country – and as I argu

In response to the housing crisis facing London and across the country , a growing number of voices are calling for an uptick in housing density . A popular approach to this discourse is “ gentle density ”, a form of residential development which sits between high-rise, urban, apartment-style developments and low-rise, suburban housing. Advocates include Create Streets , who argue that gentle density is the 'missing middle' of place-making—a network of beautiful streets

When the NHS announced its ten-year Health Plan last summer , it revealed its intention to shift healthcare from hospitals to communities by establishing localised "Neighbourhood Health Services". According to the plan, these would “create integrated, multidisciplinary teams to provide proactive, preventative, and personalized care closer to home, focusing on early intervention, digital tools, and tackling health inequalities to keep people healthier longer and reduce hospi

What’s the largest charitable organisaton in the UK? Measured by assets, it’s the Wellcome Trust , whose mission is to “ bring together expertise from across science, innovation and society to generate new knowledge and find equitable solutions to improve life, health and wellbeing” The Wellcome Trust is funded by the returns from its massive, diverse investment portfolio , which originated from a gift in the will of pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry Wellcome, making

Since launching Build for Health a year ago , I’ve been impressed with the quantity and quality of practitioners from across the built environment and health sectors that are actively exploring links between our built environment and our individual and collective health. Our first workshop in July demonstrated the breadth and depth of experience that these people bring to the challenge of building for health, and their commitment to seeing ideas made manifest. It's been

News about data centres seems to be everywhere in recent weeks and months, reflecting a spectrum of views ranging from their absolute necessity as critical infrastructure to their inherent threats to our environment and wellbeing . There are approximately 500 data centres in the UK , with growth projected at 20% over the next five years , driven by AI and cloud computing. The Times reported last weekend that nearly 100 centres are currently going through planni