Why should we plan for public health and wellbeing?

On a global, national and local level, there are significant public health challenges. These include addressing obesity, reducing smoking, increasing physical activity, improving mental health and improving air quality.

Working collaboratively across health and planning at the local level will enable planning to achieve its potential in helping to address some of these public health issues. When using planning effectively to address the health of the food and drink environment in particular, we can support people to achieve and maintain a healthier weight. More generally, this will enable planning policies and decision making to enable healthier food environments and support healthier and safer communities, aligning with a ‘Health in All Policies’ approach (1).

Planning aims to ensure that the right development happens in the right place at the right time, benefitting communities and the economy. Through the planning process, priorities are set out in relation to areas such as investment, conservation, housing, and strategic infrastructure. Essentially, planning aims to balance the social, economic and environmental impacts of new development (2).

Who are the local planning authorities?

In England, the UK Government sets out national planning policy and local authorities are responsible for local planning. Local authorities’ responsibilities include preparing local plans, assessing planning applications and implementing enforcement against unauthorised development. See the UK Government’s plain English guide to the planning system (3).

The local planning authority is the public authority whose duty it is to carry out specific planning functions for a particular area, including for county councils, district, borough or city councils, parish, community or town councils, to the extent appropriate to their responsibilities.

The structure of local government varies from area to area. In many rural parts of England, local government operates under two tiers – county and district councils. Some district councils have the status of a borough or a city and are referred to as borough or city councils. There is also a third tier – town and parish councils (4).

County councils: These are responsible for services across the whole of a county, such as planning, education, transport and trading standards.

District, borough and city councils: These cover a smaller area than county councils. They are usually responsible for planning applications and other services such as rubbish collection and housing.

Parish, community and town councils: These operate at a level below district and borough councils. They are elected and can help on a number of local issues such as, play areas and play equipment, providing allotments and consultation on neighbourhood planning.

In most urban areas of England, there are single tier (unitary) authorities – though these also exist in some rural areas too providing all the local services, including county and district level planning matters (5). There are also National Park Authorities and Development Corporations which have planning powers.

Under the Localism Act of 2011 (6), local communities have direct power to shape the development of their local area. Parish, community and town councils can influence neighbourhood planning through the development of a neighbourhood plan. This sits alongside the local plan to guide planning and development decisions in the local area. Areas without a parish, community and town council can still develop a neighbourhood plan and this is usually led by community representatives as a part of a neighbourhood forum.

The Planning Advisory Service, part of the Local Government Association, provides councils with support around local planning (3).

Further reading:

For further details of the benefits of improving health through the planning system, refer to publications on Spatial Planning for Health and Wellbeing (7) and see online learning resources by Public Health Wales on introduction to planning and public health.