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Built and natural environment

The built and natural environment are key to our health and wellbeing, as they can both harm and benefit it. This includes the places we live, work and spend time such as our homes, transport, workplaces and services (the built environment), as well as green spaces, water and wildlife (the natural environment). These environments are shaped further through spatial planning. This is the process that decides how land is used and developed. In Wales, local authorities create Local Development Plans (LDPs) to guide where homes, jobs, green spaces and services are located, and how places are planned and designed.

Good spatial planning brings together buildings, transport and nature to create places that support health and wellbeing. However, the quality, location and design of these environments can vary, meaning some people can experience more positive impacts than others, while some may experience harm.

These differences between places can lead to health inequalities. Some communities experience poorer environments and worse health outcomes than others.

Spatial planning can help address this by shaping healthier places from the start. For example, by ensuring good-quality housing, access to green space, better transport options and well-designed neighbourhoods.

What is Public Health Wales doing to strengthen the built and natural environment for the population in Wales?

Public Health Wales works with a range of partners, including local authorities, Welsh Government, Local Health Boards, Natural Resources Wales, regulators and communities, to help create places that support better health for everyone. This includes:

  • Supporting the use of Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) in planning, to understand how policies, plans and developments, could affect people’s health, its impact on health inequalities and identify ways to improve positive outcomes and mitigate any unintended negative impacts.
  • Working with planners, policymakers and communities to promote healthy, sustainable place-making, including access to green infrastructure, active travel and quality housing.
  • Contributing to planning policy and guidance to support healthier environments through Local Development Plans and decision-making.

What action should be taken to strengthen the built and natural environment at a national, regional and local level to maximise population health and reduce inequalities? 

To strengthen the built and natural environment, action is needed at national, regional and local level so that health and wellbeing is designed into places from the start, not considered later. In Wales, this means using planning, transport, housing, green infrastructure and public health policy together to create healthier places and reduce inequalities.

National level

At national level, action should focus on setting clear policy expectations, funding priorities and standards. This includes:

  • ensuring national planning policy (Planning Policy Wales) makes health, wellbeing and equity core outcomes of development
  • strengthening requirements for healthy placemaking, including good-quality housing, active travel, access to green space and climate resilience
  • embedding green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in national planning, transport and regeneration policy
  • requiring or strongly promoting Health Impact Assessment for plans, policies and major developments, so potential health impacts and inequalities are considered early and action taken to address
  • aligning housing, transport, environment and economic policy so they support the same health goals
  • directing investment toward communities with the greatest environmental disadvantage, such as poor housing, low tree cover, weak transport links or high pollution
Regional level

At regional level, action should focus on coordination across boundaries. This includes:

  • aligning regional planning, transport, housing and green infrastructure strategies to include a focus on the links with health and wellbeing
  • identifying where there are unequal patterns of access to services, public transport and quality green space
  • planning connected networks of green infrastructure, walking and cycling routes, and public transport across wider areas
  • sharing evidence on health need, environmental risk and inequality to guide investment
  • coordinating action on issues such as air quality, flooding, heat, biodiversity and access to nature
  • supporting consistent use of Health Impact Assessment and healthy planning tools across the region, including through Strategic Development Plans
Local level

At local level, action should shape the places people experience every day. This includes:

  • supporting Local Development Plans to prioritise health, wellbeing and reduced inequalities in how land is allocated, planned, designed and developed
  • prioritising planning for mixed use, walkable neighbourhoods with homes, services, schools, employment and green space in locations accessible by active travel or public transport
  • improving housing quality so homes are warm, safe, free from damp and mould and enable people to have healthy lifestyles for example through the inclusion of cycle parking and space to grow food
  • designing streets and public spaces that support walking, cycling, play and social connection
  • protecting and expanding trees, parks, green corridors, sustainable drainage and other green infrastructure
  • improving access to local nature, especially in communities with less existing provision
  • utilising Health Impact Assessments to identify potential health and wellbeing and inequalities impacts of planning policy and of major developments
  • involving communities in decisions so local knowledge shapes local places

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