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

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

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

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

The Aylesbury estate is in the London Borough of Southwark. It was built between 1963 and 1977, and is one of the largest public housing...

At a time of change and uncertainty in housing, planning and health policy, robust data gives us the anchor we need to understand what is...

Martin Prince-Parrott, the author of recently published Urban Healthonomics, is a man on a mission. He’s also a walking contradiction....

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has” ...

Does objecting to a new housing development in your local community, on the basis that no provision is made for new or expanded GP...

It wasn’t long ago that these words would look out of place in the same sentence. Why should property developers care about health, or...

On April 15, 2019 the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris was severely damaged in a devastating fire – and this week, five years on, its...

On Tuesday this week, World Toilet Day was celebrated across the world – laugh if you want, but it’s a long-established event led by...

Earlier this year I visited Singapore and wrote about how government interventions have led to some remarkable outcomes on housing,...

As the new government tries to reconcile how to grow the economy by accelerating investment in new housing with a commitment to public...

There’s an ad going round social media this week by the city of Oslo, presented with irony by a droll Norwegian who asks if Oslo is “even...

Over the last year I’ve seen more and more reports of the tensions in local communities created by new housing development and the...

Earlier this month, the Home Builders Federation revealed that over the last three years, more than £50 million of taxpayer money was...