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2 days ago7 min read
Healthy Happy Places – a collaborative initiative in the Northeast of England
There’s an area in the northeast of England where planners, health providers, arts organisations and local government are collaborating...
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Jan 254 min read
Building an environment to age well in
With a new year comes a media spotlight on self-improvement, “healthy ageing” and “longevity” feature highly in both social and...
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Jan 105 min read
Build for Health
Happy new year! Here’s hoping that sincere wishes for happiness and prosperity in 2025 are met with acknowledgment of some significant...
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Dec 17, 20243 min read
Building Health Equity – the Role of the Property Sector in Improving Health
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...
137
Dec 5, 20243 min read
Infrastructure is more than bricks & mortar
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...
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Nov 21, 20243 min read
World Toilet Day: Launching the London Loo Alliance
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...
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Nov 12, 202410 min read
Connecting the arts to local health
Since my return last month from Uganda and my blog about how participation in music making has impacted the health of local communities...
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Oct 26, 20243 min read
Health and Housing – are we at an inflection point?
Earlier this month the British Medical Journal published results of a survey by the Royal College of GPs on time spent on non-clinical...
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Oct 13, 20244 min read
Designing local initiatives for health impact – lessons from Uganda
As preventative health features prominently in the government’s agenda and in particular as a focus for improving the NHS , I’m...
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Sep 23, 20243 min read
Two easy wins for healthier places
In the wake of Lord Darzi’s report on the NHS , the IPPR report on the nation’s health , and the government’s renewed focus on...
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Sep 10, 20243 min read
Changing Places: the Life Sciences industry in London
The Life Sciences industry is comprised of companies and organisations that research, develop and manufacture pharmaceuticals,...
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Aug 14, 20244 min read
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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Jul 29, 20244 min read
Where health meets planning – lessons from Wales
As the new government tries to reconcile how to grow the economy by accelerating investment in new housing with a commitment to public...
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Jul 16, 20245 min read
Private finance, public infrastructure
Our new government has pledged to limit tax rises while at the same time promising to invest in our NHS, education and energy...
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Jun 27, 20244 min read
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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Jun 13, 20244 min read
CIL, health and health equity
Over the last year I’ve seen more and more reports of the tensions in local communities created by new housing development and the...
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May 29, 20243 min read
Supermarkets and Healthy Placemaking
Earlier this month, Asda unveiled plans for a “transformational Mixed-Use Redevelopment of its ten-acre Park Royal site in North West...
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May 17, 20243 min read
The cost of adversarial practice
Earlier this month, the Home Builders Federation revealed that over the last three years, more than £50 million of taxpayer money was...
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Apr 25, 20243 min read
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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Apr 12, 20245 min read
Infrastructure First
Along with wet weather, April came in with a blast of Nimby v Yimby hot air. So far this month, we’ve learned that Keir Starmer has...
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