Building healthy and rejecting harmfulness: a reflection on the purpose of planning

by Emma Cooke, External Affairs Manager

Much has already been written about the recently published consultation on the government’s proposed approach to reviewing the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) — asking questions about how the proposals will affect housing supply, what the implications of National Development Management Policies might be, and whether enough detail has yet been released to answer those questions.

But what of the policy objectives themselves — the drivers for making changes to the NPPF?

The objectives of the planning system

The consultation document makes clear that any changes made to the NPPF will be made with the intention of supporting ‘our wider objectives of making the planning system work better for communities, delivering more homes through sustainable development, building pride in place and supporting levelling up more generally’.

While these may be worthy objectives in themselves, what is glaring in its omission is any reference to the impact of places (and thus planning) on people, on their health, wellbeing or quality of life.

Surely this must be a central pillar of any reforms to the planning system, and indeed of the system itself?

Places directly impact our mental and physical health

If there’s one thing we’re absolutely clear about, it’s that the places that we live — our homes and neighbourhoods — have a direct impact on both our mental and physical health.

Our own Quality of Life Framework makes these links clearly, as does the vast amount of research summarised in our Evidence Review.

So it stands to reason that we should expect our planning system to deliver for the betterment of health — that we should make the decisions at the earliest of stages in the development process to design and build homes that really can act as the foundation for healthy, happy and productive lives.

Should beauty come before health?

The policy objectives are unpacked further as the paper continues. Reference is made to some very important factors, for example:

• Securing the infrastructure needed to support development
• More democratic engagement with communities and local plans
• Better environmental outcomes.

But significant weight is also given to ‘building beautiful and refusing ugliness’. In fact, this is the first objective listed. But what is beautiful? What is ugliness? And should this really be the top priority of our planning system?

Commentators have also acknowledged the impact that some of the proposals will have on delivering the homes the country needs, which also has a significant bearing on health and wellbeing.

Yes, we want to see well-designed places, and we want people to want to live in the homes and neighbourhoods that are developed. But in a country where those who live in the most deprived areas will die up to 18 years earlier than those in the most affluent, shouldn’t ‘building healthy and rejecting harmfulness’ be a greater priority? Healthy homes may very well also be beautiful homes after all.

We will of course be digging deeper into the consultation, and putting our views on the proposals forward through our membership of the Better Planning Coalition.

But a pause for reflection on the purpose of planning seems pertinent just now.