Lichfield Lecture

NEWS Analysis {

RTPI NATHANIEL LICHFIELD LECTURE 2020

Lichfi eld Lecture: Planners can lead the way in transforming public health

By Simon Wicks

More than any other event in living memory, perhaps, Covid-19 has reminded us of the relationship between health and the homes and neighbourhoods we inhabit.

Th is is by no means a new relationship, however, as Professor Georgia Butina Watson (right) explained in the 2020 RTPI Nathaniel Lichfi eld Lecture.

In ‘Health and Placemaking’, the research director of urban design at Oxford Brookes University observed that human settlements globally faced “common issues” predating Covid-19. High rates of obesity, hypertension and respiratory complaints could be linked to our lifestyles and the way we have shaped our living environments around them.

If poorly planned living environments generate poor health, can well planned places promote good health? Yes, Butina Watson insisted, pointing out positive benefi ts to good ‘placemaking’ that include cognitive improvements, improved community engagement and more physical exercise.

“As planners and urban designers we have tried to tackle this issue at all kinds of morphological levels, from s, from citywide down to individual idual houses and neighbourhoods,” she explained, outlining how ow diff erent neighbourhoods ods were embedding good health health into their overall design. sign. Utrecht in the e Netherlands, for for example, was as underpinning ng growth with h streets that were were pollution-free and people-friendly. “Th ey are turning grey infrastructure into green spaces and corridors, but also engaging residents to say what they want to see in their city and asking how health and planning can be combined,” she reported.

In South Islington, London, streetscape improvement was being evaluated in terms of health outcomes, with striking results. Here, Butina Watson explained, green chains connecting estates with streets and open spaces, combined with traffi c calming, had made the streets more attractive, safer and less polluted.

Residents had previously reported high levels of anxiety and car use. Now, they said they felt safer on the streets, spent more time outside, with neighbours and

“WE NEED TO LEARN TO WORK MORE CLOSELY ACROSS PROFESSIONS”

were more active. Children were even performing better at school.

Th e Healthy Towns Programme, where a variety of healthy planning tools were being used, was also providing planners with a bank of useful data and approaches to planning. “Compact and connected urban forms”, active travel infrastructure, space for play, “wayfi nding” and homes designed with health in mind, were emerging as features of healthy environments.

Such interventions built “stronger and more diverse communities”, which were also safer, more healthy, more economically active and more connected with nature.

In a post-pandemic world, beset also by climate change, the need to create healthy places had become more urgent. Planners, she contended, needed to play their part, but “strong leadership is required from experts and politicians. We need to learn to work more closely across professions”.

We needed to rethink our values, Butina Watson concluded. “Diff erent models of developing cities should not only be based on economic value but the value should also be on life support.”

Yes, change is

coming – but for replicate and duplicate things now, keep calm and that are already stated elsewhere in national policy”, carry on planning, c she added. Asked about the digital entreats England’s e agenda, Averley focused on the value of data consistency chief planner c over data presentation. “We sometimes struggle to terms of describing, defi ning and designing the reform then we’ll be into implementation. I can’t give a precise timetable – that will be announced in due course.”

However, local authorities should not delay their plans while all this is progressing. “Don’t stop planning," said Averley. “Don’t stall your local plan preparation. Continue to access good data and make it not just visually interesting By Huw Morris and Martin Read By but informative. I think we’re Joanna Averley found herself Joa be proactive in both the Th e ability, for example, to treading a careful path at the tre preparation of your plans and interrogate the Greater recent Town and Country rec your consenting processes. Manchester spatial Planning Association annual Pla It’s important we all do that.” framework’s GIS layers is conference. Th e recently con Th e chief planner added “only just the start. Digital appointed MHCLG chief app that a key aim of the white planning is also about making planner sought to convince pla paper is to sure the data delegates of the gamedel have “local “DON’T STOP that supplies us changing importance of the cha plans that are PLANNING, DON’T with all this reforms that the planning ref less weighty STALL YOUR LOCAL intelligence is white paper promises, while wh in terms of PLAN PREPARATION” consistently convincing local authorities con paper, but collected and not to step back from existing not more available, with a planning activity. pla meaningful in front end Indeed, Averley’s message terms of suitable for its was very much that local content and audience.” authorities must not stall on intent”. Plans needed to be Housing minister preparing their plans and “more visually engaging” and Christopher Pincher told the should continue to be active “more map-based”. conference that the white while the government Local plans should be paper had received 44,000 considers the many white “more engaging documents, responses, “so we have our paper responses. partly because the content is work cut out to identify the

Averley described the much more focused and key themes, and to look at the government as now “moving refi ned to the local context, granular detail with which into the next level of detail in but partly that they don’t we’ve been provided”. package and diff erent Th angam Debbonaire elements of it”. “We then move into a spoke of a white paper that “fundamentally misdiagnoses” the legislative process, which will causes of housing take upwards of a year, and delivery problems

moving fast in that space.”

Signifi cant reforms will need major cultural change across the planning sector.

“Parliament can’t just legislate and say make it so,” he added. “We need to engender a cultural and systemic shift in the way that we do planning. Getting it right, getting your input and driving that cultural and systemic change are crucial to making sure that the practical eff ects of the legislative changes we envisage can be implemented quickly.”

Also speaking was Th angam Debbonaire, Shadow Secretary of State for Housing and spokesman on homelessness, who voiced Labour’s concerns about the white paper’s intent.

“We oppose this attempt to prevent local people from formally objecting to inappropriate developments in their neighbourhood," said Debbonaire.

“Th is white paper fundamentally misdiagnoses the reason that too few homes are being built and proposes no real measures to force developers to use unimplemented permissions.

What’s more, “homes should be net-zero now, not built to standards which mean they will need expensive retrofi tting in future. Th ey should be powered by renewable energy wherever possible. Th ey should be well insulated, safe and secure.

Proposals on beauty are all well and good, added Debbonaire, “but missing out those other qualities seems to me to be missing the urgent challenges of climate change and a broken housing system, and the urgent need to address both through every aspect of our housing policy.”