TCPA - Planning Healthy-weight environments 2014 - Philippa Lynch

Mainstream media continues to report on the obesity crisis in society. It is now a major socio-economic and financial issue which planning and planners in its wider social, economic and environmental role, must play its part. In other words, continuing with the status quo is not an option, and the planning process must play its role. This project is the next stage of the TCPA Reuniting Health with Planning initiative to look at ways in which planning and development of the built environment can contribute to encouraging healthier populations, in particular when bringing forward different development types through the planning process.

Local authority planners have a key role in creating places that enable people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight. But they cannot do this on their own: planners must work closely with public health practitioners as well as other built and natural environment professionals, elected members and communities. This Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) publication, published in December 2014, highlights initiatives to reunite the public health and planning professions to create healthier, happier communities and places.

• Part 1 of this document is a practical resource for practitioners to use when working together to enable the creation of healthy-weight environments through the English planning system. This resource draws on current evidence and practical experience, and will help practitioners to identify common ground for ongoing collaboration on this agenda.
• Part 2 sets out key findings from a series of seven healthy-weight environment workshops held in 2014 with local authority partners. These findings summarise existing challenges, opportunities, and gaps in current policy and practice in relation to using the planning process to help create healthy-weight environments. They inform the TCPA’s own recommendations to government, published in a separate document.