Category: People

Why do Space and Stuff Matter in Housing Design?

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Elena Marco

The UK housing sector has significant challenges, not least the shortage of homes available, the time it takes to build new homes, balancing affordability versus developers’ profit margins and other factors.  Basing housing statistics and estate-agent marketing on the number of bedrooms, rather than overall dimensions and floor areas, or the suitability of the physical configuration of space, does not help a focus on the quality of the provision, nor address the space needs of those inhabiting the homes we currently build.  As house sizes can vary significantly between those with the same number of rooms, this leads to a deceptive impression of homes being bigger than they actually are. The modern desire for en-suite bathrooms, study rooms and utility areas, means that more rooms are being squeezed into the same footprint. Living room, kitchen, corridor and bathroom sizes have all reduced as a consequence. At a time when we have more possessions than ever, space for storage has been eroded to minimum (for example, the under stairs cupboard is the utility room, the attic space is the master en-suite).

Do architects really understand the needs of the inhabitants they are designing for?

I don’t think so.

Let’s take my household for example. I wake up in the morning, get my special feeling good dressing gown, then I sit in my kitchen where I get my cup and spoon for my relaxation moment double espresso, a plate for my toast, and a glass of water from the fridge. Then, I make my toast, drink my water and start my day. My son wakes up, brushes his teeth with an electric toothbrush, throws his pyjamas on the floor, goes to the wardrobe and puts on his school uniform. He comes down to sit in his gaming chair and watches some YouTube videos on his phone whilst I tidy-up after him (Yes, I know, completely the wrong thing to do!) before I get ready (shower, teeth, make-up, clothes) myself. We pick up our rucksacks, of course checking that we have what we need for the day. Next to the door we have our shoes, keys, wallets, and coats at hand to leave the house (below). By this time my husband has not yet opened his eyes! Each of us within the same house has a  different daily, weekly, monthly and yearly routine and activities that require ‘stuff’ to carry them out. All this ‘stuff’ needs a place to be stored. The space where the activities take place and the storage associated with these activities are important parts of our lives and facilitate our interactions as a family unit. Storage needs to consider these cycles and the frequency at which this stuff needs to be accessed (short, medium and long-term). These cycles of activities have a rhythm and synchronisation that are important to us. At times, these cycles facilitate social activities (with others in the household or invited guests) and other times facilitate activities where our own personal and private space is important. At those times, the stuff we surround ourselves with (a special picture, a good book, a coffee cup) has an emotional dimension. It is stuff that helps us unwind, retreat, feel better or regroup.

Mum & son’s morning routine

There are times, when you arrive home and don’t want to do homework, cook or tidy but simply lay on the sofa and watch TV or play computer games. You leave your shoes in the living room instead of their proper place near the door, the junk mail is left in the dining area, the pen you had in your pocket gets dropped near the sofa, you get a takeaway and leave the containers and plates scattered in the kitchen and the pile of ironing keeps growing in the spare bedroom (below).

Accumulation of clutter

A good tidy-up, that places stuff in its proper place, brings a sense of relief, a mental and physical sense of well-being. To make it possible to tidy, sort and store, space for storage needs to exist and be valued. Each family member might have different routines and different ways of storing things.

Synchronisation in space and time, and the sequence of key activities by household members, must be considered when designing homes. Storage needs to be seen as a fundamental dimension of design, but there is currently a disconnect between what is designed and the number and type of possessions that a household has.

I advocate for architects to acknowledge the relationship between material possessions and housing design. By better understanding the nature of ‘stuff’ and ‘space’, houses can be better designed. Storage needs to be valued, and flexibility must be the default, so that new models of housing can emerge that address the well-being and health implications associated with the cluttering of space. These new models cannot ignore the viability and affordability of housing, but neither can they ignore the needs of us, the inhabitants.

New research suggests that cemeteries provide many of the same benefits as green spaces

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Katie McClymont and Danni Sinnett…..

Cemeteries in many cities provide functions beyond that of bodily disposal and remembrance. Thinking about our own city of Bristol, Arnos Vale Cemetery provides a historic setting for numerous events and activities, a space for nature, and opportunities for community involvement, alongside its natural burial and crematoria services. Cemeteries can therefore contribute to the network of greenspaces in our towns and cities, as spaces for recreation and nature conservation providing multiple benefits, or ecosystem services, including improved health and wellbeing, flood risk management, improvements in soil, water and air quality, pollination and climate adaptation. Often historically planned to sit on the outskirts of cities, older cemeteries now offer accessible spaces in the neighbourhoods that have grown up around them, where there may be little or no other greenspace, and limited possibilities to provide more. If planned for thoughtfully, new cemeteries can be deliberately multifunctional spaces; designed from the outset to provide benefits and functions in addition to remembrance.

Informal swing at St John’s Burial Ground which also includes orchard trees

However, there has been little in the way of research on the contribution cemeteries make to our overall provision of greenspaces. In our research we have sought to address this by examining the extent to which cemeteries in England provide accessible greenspace for people and, using Bristol as a case study, explore some of the benefits that they may provide as greenspaces.

Contribution of cemeteries to greenspace provision

We used the Ordnance Survey Open Greenspace data along with data from the 2011 Census to examine the proportion of greenspaces that are cemeteries and how this varied between urban and rural areas and different types of neighbourhood. There are 120,876 greenspaces in England of which 4992 are cemeteries (4.1%) (OS, 2021). Our key findings are:

  • The amount of cemetery space in each local authority varies across England, from less than 5 ha in some areas to 183.5 ha in Birmingham.
  • The proportion of local authority comprised of cemetery space also varies from 0.0006% in West Lancashire to 3.6% in the London Borough of Newham.
  • The proportion of greenspaces that are cemetery space range from 0.24% in West Lancashire to 31.4% in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
  • On average, there are 30ha of cemetery space across English local authorities, occupying 0.3% of local authority area and 3.7% of greenspace area.
  • Cemeteries make up a greater proportion of greenspaces in urban versus rural areas; 3.8% in cities and towns to 4.9% in major conurbations.

This means that, although varying, cemeteries form an important part of the landscape across England.

Older graves at Arnos Vale Cemetery

Potential benefits provided by cemeteries

We examined the potential benefits, or ecosystem services, provided by cemeteries through a review of the literature related to cemetery design, management and use, further spatial analysis of the OS Open Greenspace data, and surveys of eleven cemeteries in Bristol, UK that were found to be important in meeting national standards for greenspace access set by Natural England. Key findings were:

  • In England, cemeteries provide the only access to doorstop (0.5 ha greenspace within 200m of home), local (2ha within 300m of home) and neighbourhood greenspaces (10ha within 1km of home) for around 2% of the population, or 1.18m, 1.09m or 1.39m people respectively.
  • In Bristol, cemeteries are providing important functions of greenspaces contributing to walking routes, providing spaces for rest and relaxation, and social interaction.
  • Older spaces appear to be primarily functioning as greenspaces, whereas cemeteries that are or were until recently accepting burials appear to be at more transitional stages providing some limited recreational function.
  • Many cemeteries are providing space for nature with relatively mature trees, and evident from observations of birds and invertebrates, again particularly in older sites. Some cemeteries are clearly being managed for nature to some extent, for example, we saw bug hotels, unmown grassed areas.
  • The vegetation in cemeteries means that they are likely to be contributing other benefits in terms of flood risk mitigation, cooling and air quality benefits.
  • We observed new tree planting, including orchard trees, at some sites, and cemeteries may offer an opportunity to increase tree cover contributing to the target to double canopy cover across Bristol.
  • The cemeteries we visited were generally well-maintained with lower levels of incivilities, such as litter and dog mess, that can be a problem in urban greenspaces.
Signage at Arnos Vale Cemetery highlights the opportunities and challenges of multifunctional cemeteries

Although the cemeteries we surveyed are providing many of the benefits of greenspaces, planners and those managing and promoting these need to be attentive to the potentially competing needs of this ‘multifunctional’ space, such as diverse religious and spiritual practices around death and remembrance. To achieve this, we would like to see national policy guidance as well as increased funding for staff time to understand how cemeteries and greenspaces could be planned and managed as multifunctional spaces. We would also like to see green infrastructure strategies incorporate specific proposals for increasing ecosystem service delivery in cemeteries. New cemeteries could also be specifically designed to incorporate features for ecosystem service delivery.

You can read the full, open access paper here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsc.2021.789925/full.

Climate-adapted, traditional or cottage-garden planting? How acceptable is ‘climate ready’ planting to the public, and what drives these reactions?

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Helen Hoyle…..

The UN COP 26 2021 Climate Conference heightened public awareness of the need to act now to mitigate the climate crisis. This in turn precipitates a call to ‘futureproof’ cities by introducing resilient urban green infrastructure compatible with future climates. Yet how do the public respond to ‘climate-ready’ planting in public places, when this may be unfamiliar and very different aesthetically to native vegetation? My earlier research indicated strong public support for the introduction of aesthetically exotic, climate-adapted planting in public parks and gardens, particularly if it was better adapted to the changing climate than traditionally-used species, yet understanding of the values underlying this acceptance, and the socio-cultural drivers of people’s perceptions, was lacking. Matthew Pottage, the Curator of RHS Wisley, was also keen to know more about public attitudes to climate-adapted planting, having recently (2017) introduced an Exotic Garden at Wisley. Incorporating species such as dramatic cannas with large vibrant orange flowers, and Chinese dwarf bananas, this is an innovative experiment to gauge the response of exotic planting to the UK climate.

Our research at Wisley involved a comparative study of public reactions to three contrasting garden styles: the exotic, an informal, English cottage-garden style, with a wilder aesthetic, incorporating familiar native species such as foxgloves, geraniums and roses, and a traditional, English formal style of planting in blocks, incorporating plant species both native and non-native to the UK such as the dahlia, rose, and clematis.

The three contrasting garden styles at RHS Wisley, Surrey

We asked:

  • What is the key driver of people’s perceptions in relation to aesthetics, self-reported restorative effect, and plant and invertebrate biodiversity: planting style or socio-cultural variability?
  • What are the socio-cultural drivers of people’s held values in relation to climate change, the introduction of non-native species, and nature-connectedness?
  • Do the perceptions and values of people with a personal interest or professional involvement in landscape, horticulture or the environment diverge from those of other members of the public?

The research was conducted on-site at RHS Wisley, Surrey, UK. Members of the public were invited to walk through one specific area of planting. We wanted people to report their own responses to engaging directly with the planting, because “the environment is experienced rather than simply looked at” (Ittleson, 1973). The questionnaire addressed participants’ perceptions of the aesthetics, biodiversity and how mentally restorative it was to walk through the planting, participants’ beliefs and values including climate-change awareness and nature-connectedness, and participants’ socio-demographic characteristics.

The Exotic Garden, most preferred aesthetically, incorporates dramatic cannas with large vibrant orange flowers, and Chinese dwarf bananas,

Our findings revealed that:

  • Aesthetically, the exotic climate-adapted planting was preferred over other two styles, whereas the cottage-garden style was perceived as the least attractive to walk through, significantly less so than other two styles
  • In contrast, the cottage-garden style was found to be the most mentally restorative to walk through
  • Members of the public accurately perceived lower levels of native biodiversity perceived in the exotic climate-adapted garden-style
  • There was a direct relationship between climate change awareness and participants’ educational qualifications. Those with no formal qualifications had significantly lower awareness of the implications of climate change than other participants.
Although perceived as the least attractive garden, the Cottage Garden was the most mentally restorative to walk through

We also found that:

  • Participants who were professionally involved landscape, horticulture or the environment perceived lower aesthetic value, restorative effect, and native biodiversity for the planting overall than non-professionals
  • Those with a personal interest enjoyed the aesthetics of nature more intensely and had stronger climate change concerns than other participants.

Our findings inform policy and practice towards the realisation of environmentally and socially sustainable urban green infrastructure in public parks, gardens and greenspaces. That participants expressed a significantly higher aesthetic preference for the Exotic, (climate-adapted) Garden over the other two garden styles provides further evidence of public support for this unfamiliar style of planting, a positive transferable finding informing policymakers and land-managers seeking to ‘futureproof’ cities by introducing climate-adapted UGI in parks and gardens. Nevertheless, the cottage-garden style, perceived as the least attractive, was considered the most mentally restorative to walk through. This provides further evidence that different stimuli elicit contrasting responses in the public. Landscape planners and designers should draw from these findings to inform practice on the ground, also providing opportunities for restoration amongst familiar, naturalistic planting in public parks. When planning and designing culturally acceptable urban green infrastructure, professionals should also be mindful of the divergence of their own perceptions and preferences from those of the wider public. That we identified significantly lower levels of climate change awareness amongst people with no formal qualifications is a striking finding. It highlights a need to consider novel science-communication strategies to transcend formal educational channels if the public is to be better informed about the challenges of climate change and their implications for urban green infrastructure. This will also broaden understanding of the positive potential for climate-adapted urban green infrastructure to deliver ‘futureproofing’ benefits for climate-change mitigation and human mental wellbeing.

You can read the full open access paper here.

Thank you to Matthew Pottage for the opportunity to conduct this research at RHS Wisley.

Learning from Tower Hamlets Health Impact Assessment (HIA) policy implementation programme 2019-2021

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Laurence Carmichael…..

Tower Hamlets (TH) Health Impact Assessment (HIA) policy was adopted as part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH) Local Plan in January 2020.

The policy aimed to be part of a set of local planning policies addressing major health challenges in the borough, including poor housing quality, overcrowding, social isolation, poor air quality, lack of access to affordable healthy food, and lack of green spaces.

Tower Hamlets HIA policy aims to tackle overconcentration of hot food takeaways and betting shops and promote healthy habits and environments (Credit: Laurence Carmichael)

In September 2019, I was recruited as HIA Officer on a secondment from UWE Bristol’s WHO Collaborating Centre to lead on the policy implementation programme. The focus of this shifted quickly from its original quality assurance ambition towards a broader political-economic approach to maximise HIA policy leverage. Outputs of the programme included:

  • An internal cross sector planning/public health partnership to maximise the legal levers of the policy
  • A suite of capacity building and review tools including:
    • Guidance tools for officers and applicants
    • Training for internal and external stakeholders
    • Evaluation work (NIHR funded)
  • National HIA policy advocacy and development:
    • Contribution to Public Health England’s national HIA guidance[1]
    • Leading on submissions to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government consultations on the reform of the English planning system on behalf of London Association of Directors of Public Health[2]

Over the two-year review period a number of significant challenges were identified, including:

  • A lack of cross sector knowledge and silo working

The programme had to be adapted to reflect planning governance and policy drivers. These challenges reflect earlier findings from the literature[3].

  • The lack of a HIA statutory policy

HIA was not a statutory instrument despite being embedded into the local plan. Planning power is also limited as the local HIA Policy does not benefit from a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) which would give it more leverage. Planning officers will decide to give or refuse planning consent on the basis of interpretation and judgement in the light of the development plan and other material considerations. They weigh up HIA evidence potentially against other material considerations and other legal obligations and this can be at the expense of health (e.g. Heritage considerations, established land use)

  • Housing policy drivers

The London Plan sets high housing targets for TH, leaving upper density levels open and giving developers the opportunity for more speculative planning applications. Government policy requires local planners de facto to lower scrutiny over some standards which have health implications and could be highlighted by HIAs (e.g. reducing affordable housing requirements)

A challenge for Tower Hamlets planners and public health officers: managing housing targets in the highest density environment in London – Here residential developments in Canary Wharf (Credit: Laurence Carmichael)
  • Poor understanding of HIA and emerging practical issues

Over a period of 22 months, the HIA Officer commented on 64 planning applications. HIAs were in the main very weak (poor methodologies, poor identification of baseline, no recommendations).  

The practice of HIA in development management process also raised a number of practical issues in relation to various types of planning applications, for instance, can we expect a detailed HIA on a S73 amendment application? (i.e. minor amendment)

The in-depth understanding of these challenges acquired over the two-year period of the review facilitated the following recommendations:

HIA in development management:

  • Focus HIAs on the largest applications
  • Ensure a public health presence in pre-applications
  • Review assessment criteria of the HIA guidance focussing on assessment topics where end user/community knowledge is most appropriate.  
  • Strengthen the Statement of Community Involvement guidance for applicants
  • Continue capacity building efforts internally
  • Design a quality assurance framework “for the reality of planning “  
  • Supply developers with a locality baseline
  • Continue monitoring/evaluating HIA effectiveness through research 

HIA in planning policy:

  • Consider the upstreaming of HIA in planning policy and strategy
  • Identify a timeline of strategic masterplans to ensure health is considered in strategic place-shaping decisions.
  • Promote HIA approach for local design guides or codes
  • Learn from HIAs over time to inform design policies in local plans

Local authorities interested in progressing their HIA agenda on urban developments are advised to learn from Tower Hamlets experience and be mindful of challenges. This should not deter them from ensuring new urban developments promote health and equity, in particular as the Covid-19 pandemics has further demonstrated the importance of the living environment on health.

For more information on the Tower Hamlets HIA policy, please contact Matthew Quin, Public Health Programme Lead – Healthy Environments Public Health, London Borough of Tower Hamlets matthew.quin@towerhamlets.gov.uk

For information on the two-year LBTH HIA review and NIHR funded evaluation,

Please contact Laurence Carmichael, Senior Lecturer in Healthy Cities, UWE, Bristol. laurence.carmichael@uwe.ac.uk

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-impact-assessment-in-spatial-planning

[2] https://adph.org.uk/networks/london/2020/11/03/https-adph-org-uk-networks-london-wp-content-uploads-2020-11-adphlresponse-planning-wp-final27102020-002-pdf/

[3] •           Carmichael, L., Townshend, T., Fischer, T., Lock, K., Sweeting, D, Petrokofsky, C., Ogilvie, F and Sheppard, A. (2019). Urban planning as an enabler of urban health: challenges and good practice in England following the 2012 planning and public health reforms, in Land Use Policy, 84, p. 154-162, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718307361 .

How future planners’ views on Covid-19 provide grounds for optimism

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

by Hannah Hickman….

The news can feel unremittingly challenging and I oscillate between trying to engage with the detail and wanting to ignore it all in the vague hope that next time I look, a future more Covid free reality might be closer on the horizon. Anecdotally, colleagues, friends and family feel similarly.

In a ‘seeking to engage phase’ last month, two headlines particularly struck me: the first, signalled that those aged 25-34 are at the highest risk of redundancy; the second, and more encouraging, suggested ‘amongst, all the doom and gloom there’s positives’[1].

It drew me to contemplate the new cohort of planning students starting their studies this academic year. For undergraduates, the 25-34 age bracket may still seem a little way off, but for post-graduates, many of them in or near that age bracket, the desire for a swift move into employment – and employment that offers security – is likely to be a pressing concern. Of course, some students may already be in work, either in planning or in another sector to fund their studies and gain experience- recently increasing numbers taking a ‘degree apprenticeship’ route into their planning studies are an important subset of the former. Whatever a student’s personal circumstances, the derivative economic impacts of Covid are likely to seed worries.

There is contemporary commentary on the student experience in Covid-times and much of this is legitimately focussed on their learning experiences. There has been little commentary, however, on how Covid might be impacting student’s perceptions of their future careers: particularly if their course of study has a defined career path. This led me to reflect on the second headline: have students’ perspectives on planning as a career or course of study changed because of COVID, and in any positive ways?


Source: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/covid-19-what-does-local-lockdown-mean-uk-universities

In 2019, UWE, with the support of the Royal Town Planning Institute, instigated a new longitudinal study to seek to understand the motivations expectations of emergent planners, in response to what was felt to be an ‘empty vessel’[2] of work on young planners and their perspectives[3]. In the second year of the study, in addition to repeating the questions posed in 2019, we asked students new to planning in 2020: “Do you feel that Covid has impacted upon your views on planning and your own career plans?”.

I wondered: did their responses provide grounds for optimism in the terms of the second headline, or reveal concerns about their future careers, more aligned with the first headline? With a response from over 220 undergraduate and postgraduate students from planning schools across the UK and Ireland, their views are worth listening to.

Despite some inevitable denigration of individual detail, their responses can be grouped into the following three themes: the first about perceptions of planning; the second about ideas of place; and the third about work.

For several students their experiences of and perspectives on Covid had emboldened their ideas about the value of planning: seeing planning as more not less relevant in a post-covid world:

“it has made me view planning as a resilient tool for making better places”

“it has shown me if the will is there planners/designers could make an immediate difference to streetscapes”

“I have always believed that reasonable planning is the basic aspiration for the development of a city or even a country. This epidemic made me realize the importance of planning and strengthened my views”.

For these young planners, Covid has provided motivation to think about the role of planning, fuelling a desire to build on the experiences of early lock-down to achieve positive change, particularly the environmental benefits of a quietened city. As one student observed: “early lockdown showed us that we can make a difference to pollution and climate change”.

They also alluded to the need to think differently about the ways in which ‘we do planning’, “I think we will need to re-evaluate the places we design and create”, “we should consider the unexpected when we make plans”, and “Planners’ role in the coming decade will be to reimagine these cities once again in the new [Post Covid] context”.

Many students’ ideas of space and place had shifted as a result of Covid. In particular, the value and importance of home has been heightened, along with a desire for more private outdoor space. One student wrote passionately about the disparities in experience between rich and poor: “lockdown has been detrimental to mental health due to a lack of parks, no gardens and extremely small houses”, andanother that “the density of cities in the future will need to be considered, will we all want to live so closely together?”. One student simply stated: “it’s made me realise the importance of green space and planning for health”.These students were also quickly attuned to some of the perversities of policy in lockdown and questioned the potential future impacts of, for example, such a major reduction in public transport usage.


Source: https://www.theplanner.co.uk/news/covid-19-green-space-should-be-a-priority-in-local-plans

Perhaps unsurprisingly a significant number responded by focussing on employment opportunities. One student lamented, “Covid has complicated an already complicated world while also making career planning more difficult” and the words “concern”, “unsure”, “impossibility”, “uncertainty”, “difficulty”, and “confusing”, were frequently used to express worries about future work. Others, however, suggested that Covid “may open up more job opportunities through more flexible working”, and that the flexible working resulting from Covid “enabled a career move”, and “caused me to re-evaluate my career and choose to go into planning”.

None of these short threads are in and of themselves inherently surprising, and as with all surveys, one is left wanting to more about the individual circumstances to understand perspectives and experiences in greater depth. Nevertheless, briefly delving into this data has led to two brief conclusions that reflect back on the headlines that provided my initial motivation for this piece. Firstly, as a profession we need to be attuned to the concerns that future planners’ have about their career choices in a post-Covid world, and consider what can be done to best support them and alleviate their concerns against the backdrop of the pandemic. Secondly, the many articulate and thoughtful responses to the ‘Covid’ question in our survey signal a motivated cohort of young planners in the pipeline: this provides enormous grounds for optimism.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-55802623

[2] T Taşan-Kok and M Oranje: ‘Young practitioners’ reflections on contemporary ethical challenges’. In T Taşan-Kok and M Oranje: From Student to Urban Planner: Young Practitioners’ Reflections on Contemporary Ethical Challenges. Routledge, 2018, p.17

[3] More information is available via: https://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/spe/projects/young-planners-expectations-and-motivations

The Art of Healing: arts-led research to support child wellbeing in Kashmir.

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

by Michael Buser…..

Kashmir – set in northern region of the Indian subcontinent – encompasses territories administered by India, Pakistan and China.  The region has long been contested and fought over (India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the territory) and is considered to be one of the most militarised areas in the world.  In the Kashmir Valley, in places like Srinagar and Pulwama, where our research team is working, everyday life is marked by the presence of military, curfews, stone-pelting, demonstrations and violence. Like most of the world, Kashmir has been under various forms of restrictions (e.g., school closures) due to Covid-19. Yet, the lockdown in Kashmir started in August 2019 when the Indian government amended the constitutional provisions and special status which allowed a level of autonomy for this Muslim majority state. Children have been particularly impacted by these events – many young people will have experienced trauma and live in a state of uncertainty and fear.

I have been involved in organising a diverse group to provide support to young people who live in Pulwama – an area that has been the centre of clashes between the army and militants (including a 2019 attack on a military convoy that resulted in 21 deaths).  Our team is funded through the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s ‘Urgency’ programme and ‘Global Challenges Research Fund’ and includes an amazing collection of dedicated people – including UK and Indian-based artists and film-makers as well as experts in public and child health, psychology and arts-based therapy, and international politics.  We are collaborating with a local school whose enthusiastic and caring teachers and administrators have integrated arts activities into the school’s curriculum. 

Children have been working through the ‘land of colours’ as a way of exploring a number of themes including happiness, suffering, heroism, and compassion

Over the past several months, we have been working with about 30 children ages 11 to 15 to support their wellbeing through a range of art-based therapy and arts activities.  These have been delivered online and face-to-face (the school is mostly closed, yet some activities are taking place on campus).  My colleague Anurupa Roy has been leading on the online activities with the children which has led to an amazing outpouring of creative work. This has all been accomplished through lockdowns, internet cut-offs, bandwidth restrictions, and all kinds of technological and political challenges.

Delivery of the in-person activities has also been extremely challenging. I thought this could be best expressed by quoting some words from Vikramjeet Sinha, an arts-based therapist working with the children.  

The breath-taking natural, brutal beauty of Kashmir, the lovely eyes of the children when they speak … keeps me at it and whatever the challenges I face, the children are worth it for they are so sweet. The first week there was a grenade blast on our way back in the evening, and even though it was not a close shave, I could not let the peaceful natural beauty delude me that things are peaceful. Civilians were killed in the blast and during these times the internet often gets cut off and any other zoom call with the world becomes an impossibility. Municipal elections at Pulwama kept the internet off for two days, such unprecedented things often happen out here.

Vikram’s reflections draw attention to some of the difficulties of working on the project – but also, how it is so fulfilling.  For my part, I am honoured to be part of this work and extremely grateful to be an academic who can direct energy and support to the wellbeing of people living in such difficult circumstances.  From this perspective, I have been disappointed to see news about the UK government’s decision to reduce the overseas aid budget from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of gross national income.  Not only are programmes like the GCRF funded through development assistance, but as many others have said, these cuts will have real impacts on the lives of people at risk in areas of the world where support is needed.

At the end of the first round of work, the children gave a shadow puppet performance.  This image shows one of the sets constructed for the show.
 

Going forward we are continuing with online activities with the expectation of some face-to-face (Covid safe!) work in Pulwama in March.  At this stage, we are enjoying watching the artwork emerge – they have produced some spectacular pieces (a few of which I’ve included here).  We are also noting how the children are expressing themselves and allowing their inner worlds to become unlocked through the therapeutic experience of the arts.   

If anyone has any comments or questions, please get in touch: Michael.Buser@uwe.ac.uk

Getting public health evidence into planning policy

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Danielle Sinnett, Miriam Ricci, Janet Ige, Hannah Hickman, Adam Sheppard and Nick Croft (UWE), Michael Chang (PHE), Julia Thrift and Tim Emery (TCPA)

The Getting Research Into Practice 2 (GRIP2) project was commissioned by Public Health (PHE) England and delivered in collaboration with the Town and Country Planning Association. The project had two aims:

  1. To facilitate the implementation of health evidence set out in key PHE publications by directly engaging with local and regional policy makers, and practitioners across place-making professions and communities.
  2. To provide evidence-informed resources to assist local authorities in developing planning policies to improve health and wellbeing.

Following the publication of Spatial Planning for Health in 2017, PHE commissioned a further research project: Getting Research into Practice (GRIP). This sought to explore the use of the principles set out in Spatial Planning for Health, and the challenges of applying these in local planning policy and decision making. The findings informed the basis of this second phase of Getting Research into Practice (GRIP2).

What we did

We selected four locations to take part in the research and develop local resources from 39 Expressions of Interest. Workshops were then held in each of the selected locations, below, to understand how health evidence could be used in the development of planning policies, with a different focus:

  • Worcestershire: template Technical Research Paper on Planning for Ageing Well that could form the evidence base for new Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD).
  • Hull: template SPD on Healthy Places to address the considerable health inequalities.
  • North Yorkshire, York and East Riding (YNYER): framework for planning for health.
  • Gloucestershire: template to integrate health into neighbourhood plans.

The four workshops took place in November 2019 and each was attended by approximately 30 key representatives from across planning and public health, the relevant local authorities or county councils, and locally identified stakeholders. Workshops consisted of a series of short ‘scene setting’ presentations followed by short interactive workshops.

Written notes from workshop discussions and other background documentation from the local areas were then analysed using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo.

The notes and analysis were used to develop:

·         Framework for a healthy places supplementary planning document (SPD)

·         Developing a healthy planning principles framework

·         Guide to creating a technical research paper on ageing well

·         Guide to embedding health and wellbeing in neighbourhood plans

A suite of guidance to integrate health evidence into planning policies

Key findings and recommendations

We found that across the four locations examined there is a genuine recognition of the ongoing need to develop places that improve health and wellbeing outcomes and reduce health inequalities. However, integration and partnership working across the professions is key, and there are areas of good practice where this is already taking place. It was seen as crucial that all those involved in the planning and development process understand the importance of planning in tackling poor health and health inequalities, including central and local government planning policymakers, and those working in development management, private developers and their consultants.

Despite this, barriers remain related to a lack of leadership, experience, financial resources and capacity in local authorities. Participants were positive that these barriers could be overcome through, for example, increasing communication and joint working between planning and public health teams, learning from best practices and successes in other locations, making better use of the powers available to planners and including a wider range of voices and contributions in the local planning policy process.

There is also an opportunity to make more effective use of health evidence in local planning policy by improving stakeholders’ understanding of the types and sources of available evidence and their strengths and limitations.

The effective use of health evidence in practice, in turn, can further strengthen the case for healthy places at the local level, encouraging buy in from politicians and local communities.

The use of workshops was seen as a key engagement mechanism that helped to initiate and strengthen these local appetites for better integration.

The research report provides a series of recommendations, for example:

  • Tailored local evidence with specific objectives and audiences in mind could be provided to allow planning policies and decisions to be made more effectively and robustly.
  • All stakeholders could develop a shared understanding of the role of planning in improving population health and reducing health inequalities.
  • Make best use of public health evidence, including that generated by communities, to help planners use their powers more effectively.
  • Ensure that health inequalities, and their relationship with the built environment, are well understood and explained in planning policies.
  • Support the creation of an effective evidence base which can be applied within a planning context, including through monitoring and evaluation of planning policies.

The resources provided above provide detailed guidance towards achieving some of these recommendations and are a valuable resource for planning and public health teams.

The key to post COVID-19 recovery: community leadership

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Robin Hambleton….

As well as causing appalling suffering and misery, the COVID-19 pandemic is opening up new possibilities for the future.  An uplifting feature of the way that communities have responded to the COVID-19 calamity has been the spectacular expansion of self-organising community groups working at neighbourhood, or village, level to help the vulnerable and the needy.

While researching my new book, Cities and communities beyond COVID-19. How local leadership can change our future for the better, I encountered many heart-warming stories of how local communities have responded with great imagination to the disruption of local food supply chains, taken steps to protect the most vulnerable in society, and engaged in all manner of creative, problem-solving activities at the local or hyper-local level.

My research suggests that cities and localities across the world now face four major challenges at once: 1) The COVID-19 health emergency, 2) A sharp, pandemic-induced economic downturn, 3) The climate change emergency, and 4) The disastrous growth of social, economic and racial inequality in many countries.

The good news is that many cities and localities are already developing and delivering progressive strategies that address these four challenges at one-and-the-same time.

An example of good civic leadership – Freiburg, Germany

The photographs in this piece are from one of the cities now leading the way in responding to current societal challenges.  Freiburg is, of course, very well known for pioneering high quality city planning and urban design. 

For example, the Academy of Urbanism joined with the City of Freiburg in publishing The Freiburg Charter for Sustainable Urbanism in 2011.The Academy wanted not just to recognise the achievements of civic leaders and city planners in Freiburg, but also to spread the word about their approach to an international audience.

What is not so well known is that Martin Horn, the young and energetic politician, who was elected as Mayor of Freiburg in 2018, is stepping up the progressive ambition of Freiburg’s policy making.  For example, he is insisting that, as well as meeting very high environmental standards, over 50% of new housing in the city must be affordable. Yes, that’s 50%. 

Detailed plans for Dietenbach, a new eco-friendly neighbourhood for 15,000 people, deliver on this objective.  Submitted to Freiburg City Council last month, these plans also provide open space, schools, sports facilities, day-care centres and local shopping opportunities.  

Meanwhile, the imaginative Freiburg holds together (Freiburg halt zusammen) digital network bundles together numerous citizen-oriented information services and activities for residents struggling with COVID-19 pressures.

Freiburg is just one of the progressive cities featured in my book.  Other cities discussed include Bristol, Copenhagen, Dunedin, Mexico City and Portland.

Children enjoying outdoor space in Vauban, Freiburg, Germany. (Source: the author).

Lessons for UK policy, practice and research

Three lessons for UK policy, practice and research emerge. 

First, the government’s 2020 White Paper, Planning for the Future, needs to be discarded as quickly as possible.  It contains proposals that will not just destroy effective approaches to local planning but also weaken councillor and citizen involvement in local decision-making.[i]   

The evidence from Freiburg, and other enlightened cities, demonstrates that high quality urban development designed to address the climate emergency, provide housing opportunities for the less well off in society, and build liveable communities requires more planning, not less.[ii]

Second, councillors in Freiburg, like all those in Germany, have the constitutional protection to do what they think is right for the people living in their locality.  German local authorities have, then, the freedom to do things differently.  This is not the case in the UK and it is essential to rebalance power within our country via a constitutional convention.  Comparative research can help to make the case for giving local power a major boost.

Third, researchers studying how to create sustainable cities and localities need to give much more attention to power relations.  Advancing our understanding of what needs to be done to co-create liveable cities and towns is vital.  However, just as important, research needs to explore how to bring about progressive change in society. 

What is the power system that is leading to unsustainable urban development?  How can this power system be changed?  What lessons can we learn from cities that are already delivering sustainable development?  These are the kinds of questions that deserve more active consideration by researchers studying modern urban, rural and regional development.

Robin Hambleton is Emeritus Professor of City Leadership at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Film of book launch

Robin Hambleton’s new book, Cities and communities beyond COVID-19, was published in October 2020.  The book launch, organised by the Bristol Festival of Ideas, includes contributions from Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, who has written a Foreword to the book, and Professor Sheila Foster, University of Georgetown, Washington DC.  This discussion, which was chaired by Andrew Kelly, Director of the Bristol Festival of Ideas, is available here: https://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/events/cities-and-communities-beyond-covid-19/

References

[i] Hambleton R. (2020) ‘Strong place-based leadership is instrumental in the battle against COVID-19’ The Planner, 19 October.

[ii] The key suggestion here is that public policy needs to advance caring in modern society – meaning caring for others and caring for the natural environment on which we all depend.  See Hambleton R. (2020) ‘COVID-19 opens a new political window’, Town and Country Planning, November/December, 89, 11/12, 366-370.

‘Creativity sustains us, and so does community’: reflections on listening to art in the city.

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Katie McClymont….

I was privileged to be invited by Rising Arts Agency[1] as a ‘keynote listener’ in their performance of a conversation on the question of ‘who is allowed space to create in Bristol?’ on 4th October 2020. This was part of the Centre of Gravity exhibition in Soapworks/the old Gardiner Haskins[2] building in Bristol. Sitting in a circle for part of a conversation which carried on all afternoon and featured inputs from various young artists, I was one of a selection of ‘listeners’ who were allowed to contribute only one sentence to this conversation.

I will here try to outline to some of the things I heard, and reflect on where this conversation may lead. I will not do justice to the depth or breadth of the conversation in this small space, nor do I claim that the voice written here is anything other than mine, but I am doing this because I want to express what I heard when I was listening because I feel being in a position which gives me an audience for my words, I have a responsibility to take this conversation forward.

I am going to focus on three themes which I heard weave throughout the conversation: change, ownership, and the nature of space. This does not represent the totality of what was said, or the totality of what I heard (and I don’t assume these to be the same thing), but these ideas resonated with me, thinking as a planner about more equitable and inspiring urban spaces for the future.

The conversation opened with a discussion about the (in)affordability of space, for living and for arts, and the need for the democratisation of space at all scales- the room, the building and the city. This rapidly linked to ideas of gentrification- including a reflection on whether this conversation itself was a form of gentrification- and the nature of change. Participants saw change as inevitable: but the emotional impact (as well as financial benefits) being unevenly distributed. Questions were raised about who has to let go of the things to which they are emotionally attached for change to come about in ‘the ecology of capitalism’. Change in the city is about the movement of people, and the acceptability of this is tied to money- who brings money in by making changes, who brings a cost by arriving somewhere? Who is let in, what is protected?

Participating in the the conversation as a ‘keynote listener’

These questions on belonging, and voice in change linked to the discussions of ideas of ownership. Ownership as paradoxical term- it implies ‘home’, safe space, and comfort but also unfairness, because not all have it- not everyone has somewhere they (feel they) own. Ownership was described as individual, financial, emotional- and questions raised of how can cities accommodate all of these sorts of ownership. More negatively, ownership was also seen as limiting, tying down, holding back, stuck in one place. This relates to the impact a space has on the product or performance of all artists and the implications of the difficult balance between stability and trappedness. Moreover, this is of particular concern to young artists, asking how old do we have to be to be taken seriously- when are we no longer emerging, and therefore have the legitimacy to claim space and to remake the city in their ways, rather than being invited into space: having space for guests and visitors, rather than being visitors and guests in spaces which are owned by someone else.

Debating change and ownership in this way questions static understandings of space and place. These are questions of scale (the city itself as a space) and of purpose (the role of arts as bring about social change).  Physical space is important for reflection and connections and for new ways of experiencing ourselves- beyond the space of the phone. A particular point here was the potential of abandoned buildings: emptiness may be seen as a problem in planning/property development but offers so much scope for artists, particularly young artists, who need for ‘test space’ for experimentation without gatekeepers. Emptiness or abandonment here are not just physical or economic states, but ones of meaning-the creation of a vessel waiting to be (re)filled with a different essence. In some ways, this comes back to the first point- about being priced out of the market and the fear of gentrification. Where can be left empty for temporary inhabitation, experimentation and expression when everything has a price tag?

At a time of such uncertainty brought about by Covid, and compounded by proposed reforms to the planning system, we have scope to rethinking priorities in society- and in the cities and neighbourhoods in which this society lives. Can we think more deeply about sustaining places- places which sustain us, and in which we manage change in more inclusive and just ways- so that who is allowed space to create, and allowed to create space, is a question of conversation not just of cost.

[1] See https://rising.org.uk/ and in particular https://rising.org.uk/who-is-allowed-space-to-create/

[2] https://www.centreofgravity.uk/about

New review finds that better access to green spaces has a beneficial impact on anxiety and depression in young people, aged 14 to 24 years.

Author Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments | Posted on

By Issy Bray, Danni Sinnett, Rebecca Reece, Rob Hayward and Faith Martin…

Mental health of young people is a serious concern, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic which has had a massive impact on the lives of young people.

The Wellcome Trust commissioned 30 reviews over Summer 2020 to better understand the ‘active ingredients’ for tackling high rates of anxiety and depression in young people, aged 14 to 24 years. You can read more about their programme and the other projects here: https://wellcome.org/what-we-do/our-work/mental-health-transforming-research-and-treatments. Our team was commissioned to conduct a review of the evidence for better access to green spaces as a means to prevent anxiety and depression in young people. This is a multidisciplinary team bringing together public health (Dr Issy Bray, Dr Rob Hayward, Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing https://www1.uwe.ac.uk/hls/research/publichealthandwellbeing.aspx), green infrastructure and planning (Dr Danni Sinnett, Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments) and psychology (Dr Faith Martin, University of Coventry, Rebecca Reece, Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing). This blogpost is drawn from the summary findings we submitted to the Wellcome Trust as one of the deliverables for the project.

Evidence shows that exposure to green space and having a connection with nature can benefit mental health. However, reviews of the evidence have tended to focus on children or adults. Our review looked at the evidence specifically for 14-24 year olds, and tried to better understand how green space can reduce the risk of anxiety and depression for this age group.

What we did

  • A review of a wide range of scientific research explored the role of exposure to green space in preventing anxiety and depression among young people aged 14-24 living in urban settings
  • This evidence was used to develop a model to help us understand the relationship between green space and mental health for this age group
  • Young people with lived experience of anxiety or depression were consulted about the design of our study and the model.

What we found and what this means?

  • There’s strong evidence that walking or being in a green space like a forest or park improves mood and reduces feelings of anxiety for young people aged 14-24
  • This is likely to be due to the restorative (psychologically healing) properties of green spaces. Time away from noise/work/people/social media enables young people to notice and appreciate nature, which encourages mindfulness and increases resilience to cope with stress
  • Although even short walks (15 minutes) in a green space are beneficial, there is some evidence that larger parks are more helpful, and excursions to natural environments outside the city also have psychological benefits
  • Green spaces also enable social interaction and physical activity, both of which are likely to prevent depression
  • Young people tend to under-estimate the mental health benefits of their local green space, and therefore do not use it as much as they might to improve their mood.

These findings are summarised in the infographic below.

Infographic summarising the main findings of the review

What types of studies were included?

Many of the studies included in our review were experiments which involved young people walking through a green environment (e.g. forest, park) or an urban environment. These studies compared mood and feelings of anxiety in the two groups. They tended to be carried out in Asian countries with students as participants. Some studies compared outcomes for young people before and after they completed an outdoor activity programme (e.g. a hike in the wilderness). We also included non-experimental studies that assessed the relationship between levels of neighbourhood vegetation and various outcomes, including mental health.

What were the problems with the studies?

The participants in the experimental studies were not representative of all young people aged 14-24 (e.g. often students), and some of them were based on quite small numbers of people. Few studies had depression or anxiety disorders as the main outcomes of interest, and few studies measured outcomes over the longer term.

How can those planning and designing places use this evidence?

Young people experience high levels of anxiety and depression; 1 in 5 young people have symptoms of these conditions and rates are increasing. Young people are also often disadvantaged in terms of access to private gardens, and the ability to travel long distances from where they live. This means that their neighbourhood green spaces and those in educational settings are crucial. Therefore, those planning and designing places must prioritise better access too these types of green spaces for young people, both in terms of the physical proximity to where they live, but also in ensuring they are designed to accommodate the needs of young people. Given that young people are often not aware of the beneficial role of green spaces for their mental health, there is also a need to engage young people in making better use of the green spaces they can access.

Back to top