This week NHS England announced 10 new towns will form the pilot of a new healthy town initiative…
Ten new towns across England are set to become test sites to tackle health care challenges facing society today.
The initiative, supported by Public Health England, will see new communities across England turned into healthy towns.
The project will involve more than 76,000 new homes and an estimated 170,000 residents. The NHS will be involved in shaping how these sites are developed, using the expertise of clinicians, designers, and technology experts to reimagine how healthcare can be delivered. It will focus on bringing together design of the built environment with modern health and care services.
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said: ”As these new neighbourhoods and towns are built, we’ll kick ourselves if in 10 years time we look back having missed the opportunity to ’design out’ the obesogenic environment, and ‘design in’ health and wellbeing.
“We want children to have places where they want to play with friends and can safely walk or cycle to school – rather than just exercising their fingers on video games.
“We want to see neighbourhoods and adaptable home designs that make it easier for older people to continue to live independently wherever possible. And we want new ways of providing new types of digitally-enabled local health services that share physical infrastructure and staff with schools and community groups.”
Locality, a national network of ambitious and enterprising community-led organisations, said the initiative was an exciting opportunity to improve the health and wellbeing of thousands.
Chief executive Tony Armstrong said: “We know that obesity, sedentary lifestyles and isolation are growing and that the built environment can have a huge impact on the health and wellbeing of communities; green spaces and infrastructure can encourage walking, cycling, interaction between people in the street and outdoor play for children.
“But these new towns need to be built on the strong foundations of community involvement if they truly are to be ‘healthy’. They need resilient community organisations at their hearts to support people to come together and shape the priorities for their local area and to create healthy, thriving communities.
“In planning and developing these communities, it is vital that we don’t just focus on the bricks and mortar, but also support the development of strong community infrastructure and make sure that local people are involved in decisions which affect their local area from day one.”
The first 10 sites will include:
- Whitehill and Bordon, Hampshire – 3,350 new homes on a former army barracks.
- Cranbrook, Devon – 8,000 new residential units.
- Darlington – 2,500 residential units across three linked sites in the Eastern Growth Zone.
- Barking Riverside – 10,800 residential units on London’s largest brownfield site.
- Whyndyke Farm in Fylde, Lancashire – 1,400 residential units.
- Halton Lea, Runcorn – 800 residential units.
- Bicester, Oxon – 393 houses in the Elmsbrook project, part of 13,000 new homes planned
- Northstowe, Cambridgeshire – 10,000 homes on former military land.
- Ebbsfleet Garden City, Kent – up to 15,000 new homes in the first garden city for 100 years
- Barton Park, Oxford – 885 residential units.
Some of the options to be examined during the pilot scheme include fast food-free zones near schools, dementia-friendly streets, and the digitalisation of GP services.
Public Health England’s national director for health and wellbeing Professor Kevin Fenton said: “Some of the UK’s most pressing health challenges – such as obesity, mental health issues, physical inactivity and the needs of an ageing population – can all be influenced by the quality of our built and natural environment. The considerate design of spaces and places is critical to promote good health.”
