Can ‘building in health’ save the NHS?

Can we save the NHS by building healthier places? This was the provocation at last night’s Developing Healthy Neighbourhoods event as part of Bristol’s Healthy City Week. Organised by Bristol Health Partners and IBI Group, and supported by Bristol’s mayor, this event asked the audience to consider two potential solutions to ‘business as usual’ development which often risks creating unhealthy places. I presented the ‘development economics for health’ solution which suggested that developers should create healthier places in all developments – not only high value schemes.

New development near Packington Estate, Islington, London.
New development near Packington Estate, Islington, London.

Continue reading “Can ‘building in health’ save the NHS?”

Get out of the grid – the trouble with CHP and the public sector

For the public sector, putting the wheels in motion to use combined heat and power and develop district energy networks is very difficult.  Whose job is it to take on this massive opportunity?  In some councils you’ll find a dedicated district energy officer, while in others there may be a spatial planner struggling to look at this alongside other a long list of other responsibilities.  With energy prices steadily rising, now is the time to develop decentralised energy.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a huge gap between public and private sector skills and knowledge, leaving the public sector way behind the times. Continue reading “Get out of the grid – the trouble with CHP and the public sector”

Copenhagen or not, we have local responsibilities

Expectations for Copenhagen have been a swinging pendulum over the last few weeks.  Obama is going…he’s not going.  We’ll have legally binding agreements…we won’t have legally binding agreements.  In this uncertainty, the LGA held a timely debate earlier this week called Copenhagen: can we turn global talks into action on the ground? The panel was suitably expert to stimulate thought and incite intense frustration (or maybe that’s just me).

Richard Kemp (Deputy Chair, LGA) started off the discussion with a sobering figure on the high percentage of people who still think climate change isn’t caused by humans.  Then Chris Church (Low Carbon Communities Network) told a similarly upsetting anecdote of doing a training session in a district authority where a group of councillors came together and said that the council shouldn’t do anything about climate change as it’s not an issue.  This points to one of the main issues with the role that councils play in the UK’s response to climate change: we need politicians who aren’t afraid to make a tough decision that might only realise benefits after their time in office.  (It would also help if they accepted the causes of climate change in the first place.) Continue reading “Copenhagen or not, we have local responsibilities”