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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Oct 263 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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Sep 103 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 144 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 294 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 165 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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May 293 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 173 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 253 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 125 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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Mar 44 min read
Notes from a Blue Zone
I spent last week in Singapore which, along with many other accolades, has been designated the world’s sixth Blue Zone, and the world’s...
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Feb 164 min read
Life in a parallel universe
A parallel universe, also known as an alternate universe, parallel world, parallel dimension, or alternate reality, is a hypothetical...
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Dec 8, 20234 min read
Improving Health through the Built Environment – panel discussion at the NHS ICS/ICB Congress
The GIANT Health event, now in its tenth year, took place earlier this week, and I was invited to convene a panel for the NHS ICS/ICB...
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Oct 12, 20234 min read
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, 20234 min read
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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Aug 24, 20233 min read
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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Aug 9, 20232 min read
First, do no harm
Anyone involved in medicine and the provision of healthcare will recognise this phrase and its origins in Hippocrates – it embodies the...
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Jul 26, 20235 min read
The Stag Brewery regeneration –a planning test for our time?
A planning application to redevelop the Stag Brewery in Mortlake was approved by Richmond Council last week. The largest regeneration...
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Jun 23, 20234 min read
The coalitions are coming
Just when I thought it wasn’t possible, not one but two coalitions of Built Environment organisations have announced their arrival in the...
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Jun 9, 20234 min read
When dots don’t connect
Earlier this year when Secretary of State for Levelling up Michael Gove suggested that a rethought approach to planning education could...
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