Town planners should be visionaries and address the converging public health, climate emergency and economic recovery challenges to create healthy communities post-COVID, according to a new report by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

A new report, Enabling Healthy Placemaking, calls for greater levels of cooperation and collaboration between health, social care, and planning professionals to ensure peoples health needs are integrated into the conceptualisation, design and planning stages of new developments in the future.

It highlights seven ways to enable planners to lead the way in creating healthy and sustainable communities.

Deputy head of policy and research at the RTPI and author of the report, Aude Bicquelet-Lock, said: The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a bright light on much that is wrong with our communities and laid bare the fact that many peoples health has suffered as a result of sub-standard living conditions. This is largely due to the fact that over the years the health needs of communities have often been forgotten in the race to meet housing targets and appease developers.

The links between town planning and good health have long been established and there is a plethora of evidence proving that healthy places create healthy people who in turn are able to contribute to and build a healthy economy.

Healthy place-making is critical to address health challenges and reduce inequality, so it is now vital that we overcome some of the barriers to creating healthy places, turn the evidence into policy and the policy into action to create the healthy, resilient and inclusive places necessary for people to thrive.

Results from an analysis of 15 case studies and 10 interviews suggest that successful projects are all underpinned by a long term vision, fruitful collaboration, communication and adequate funding.

Barriers to creating healthy places include current legislation and policies, insufficient funding and requirements and expectations of developers.

Seven ways to enable healthy placemaking:

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