Planning is messy – but reducing it to binary choices will not give us the sustainable places we need
Earlier this year I visited Singapore and wrote about how government interventions have led to some remarkable outcomes on housing,...
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- Jun 27
- 4 min
Making London more swimmable
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...
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- Apr 25
- 3 min
Vulnerable in the city
“Vulnerability” comes from the Latin word for wound – vulnis. It’s the state of being open to injury, or appearing as if you are. Feeling...
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- Mar 26
- 4 min
Can local initiatives increase the life expectancy of residents?
A report came out last week from the Kings Fund and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation giving new evidence to the link between areas of...
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- Oct 12, 2023
- 4 min
Borrow some medical practice to build healthy homes and places
This past year has seen real progress in demonstrating how our built environment - the homes & places where we live – impacts our...
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- Sep 29, 2023
- 4 min
Connecting generations through houses & places
Earlier this week I came home to find on my doormat a “special invitation” from Audley Villages to visit a newly developed “luxury...
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- Sep 7, 2023
- 3 min
We all deserve to live in a Blue Zone
A new docuseries dropped on Netflix last week called “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones”. The series is conceived, produced, and...
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- Aug 24, 2023
- 3 min
We need to talk about Toilets
When I wrote over a year ago about the need to rethink public toilets, a journalist I know told me that the issue would not attract wider...
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- Jul 16, 2023
- 3 min
Homes, Places and the Peckham Experiment
Last year I interviewed Lord Nigel Crisp about housing and its impact on our individual and collective health, and how the scale of this...
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- May 3, 2023
- 5 min
How do we sustain multigenerational communities in London?
“We often hear about stepping outside ourselves, but rarely about stepping outside our generation.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy...
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- Apr 6, 2023
- 4 min
Health services must be prioritised in communities undergoing regeneration
Some recent events in Kent illustrate a disconnect between planning for new housing development and providing essential health services...
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- Jan 22, 2023
- 6 min
Placeshaping, Communities, Health and Wellbeing: an interview with Professor Kevin Fenton CBE
There is perhaps no one more informed about the integration of place, health & wellbeing in London than Professor Kevin Fenton CBE, ...
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- Dec 6, 2022
- 4 min
A River Runs Through It
I’ve always had a fascination with rivers and with cities, which is why I live in London on the river Thames and belong to a local rowing...
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- Nov 22, 2022
- 4 min
How listening to locals generates good health: a visit to the Bromley-by-Bow Centre
I visited the Bromley-by-Bow Centre (BBBC) last week for a presentation, tour and chat with its insights director Dan Hopewell. Quite by...
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- Oct 27, 2022
- 3 min
Homes, Places and Health – an interview with Lord Nigel Crisp
Nigel Crisp is an independent crossbench member of the House of Lords where he co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global...
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- Oct 7, 2022
- 4 min
…and we have the data to prove it. Now what?
One of the positive contributions of the Covid era to both global and local health has been the vast collection of data on who, how, when...
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- Oct 20, 2021
- 3 min
New approaches to promoting health in local communities
The growth in health inequalities across London and the country has focused many of us on how to improve accessibility to health services...
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- Jul 6, 2021
- 4 min
It’s time to put health at the heart of planning decisions
We’re now all too familiar with the catchy phrases and the repeated taglines presented to us by the government each day – “Levelling up”,...
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