Val Kirby: Designing Landscapes for Health & Wellbeing. ■ Julia Thrift: Planning, Green Infrastructure and Health & Wellbeing. ■ Chris Beardshaw: Designing Gardens for Health & Wellbeing.

1. Session 2: Designed gardens & landscapes for health & wellbeing
1055 Dr Val Kirby
Designing Landscapes for Health & Wellbeing
1105 Julia Thrift (TCPA)
Planning, Green Infrastructure and Health & Wellbeing
1115 Chris Beardshaw
Designing Gardens for Health & Wellbeing
1125 Questions on Session 2

2. DESIGNING LANDSCAPES
FOR HEALTH & WELLBEING
HEALTH & HORTICULTURE CONFERENCE
4 JULY 2016
Presentation By Val Kirby, FLI

3. 1 Healthy places improve air, water and soil quality, incorporating measures that help
us adapt to, and where possible, mitigate, climate change

4. Principle 1
Edgware Road Green Wall, London
Transport for London
Avenue Coking Works, TEP Landscape Architects

5. 2 Healthy places help overcome health inequalities and can promote healthy lifestyles

6. Principle 2
Green Link, Motherwell, Edinburgh
Dudley Healthy Towns Programme,
Dudley Metropolitan Council

7. 3 Healthy places make people feel comfortable and at ease, increasing social
interaction and reducing antisocial behaviour, isolation and stress
Inwood Park Water Play Area, Hounslow, London

8. Principle 3
Eastern Curve, Dalston
Royal Edinburgh Community Gardens,
Edinburgh Cyrenians Trust

9. 4 Healthy places optimise opportunities for working, learning and development

10. Principle 4
Barbluie Woodland Enterprise
Green Space Service, Helena Partnerships

11. 5 Healthy places are restorative, uplifting and healing for both
physical and mental health conditions

12. Principle 5
Exmoor National Park perceptions study
South West Acute Hospital,
Timothy Soar

13. Recommendations,
Challenges & Next
Steps
6. Collaboration is key
7. Recognise the multifunctional
benefits that landscape offers
8. Use Health Impact Assessments
9. Ensure community buy-in
10. More evidence
1. A bigger role for public health
in place making
2. A resource commitment
3. Realise national
requirements at local level
4. Recognise landscape as an
asset
5. Use landscape in
performance indicators for
public health

15. Planning, green infrastructure,
health and wellbeing
Julia Thrift
Projects Director
TCPA
4 July 2016
@GIPartnership @theTCPA @juliathrift

16. About the TCPA
Leading the planning debate in the UK
www.tcpa.org.uk @thetcpa

17. the progressive origins of planning
Victorian England and the progressive origins of planning…

18. Garden cities:
•Well designed buildings and landscape
•High proportion of social housing
•Healthy green spaces
•Space to grow food
•Access to jobs, social life, culture
Garden cities have always been about creating
environments in which everyone can thrive…

19. ‘Fair society, healthy lives’
2010
The ‘Marmot Review’
The environments in which
we live have a major impact
on whether or not we are
healthy…
TCPA’s ‘Reuniting
Health with Planning’
work…
Source: H. Barton and M. Grant
The ‘wider determinants’ of health

20. Parks:
individual sites managed for amenity…
Green infrastructure:
networks of green spaces, trees,
green roofs, river corridors etc
managed to maximise sustainable
drainage, urban cooling, active
transport, public health…
Parks or green infrastructure?

21. Challenges:
• Housing shortage – pressure to build homes not
parks
• Council budget cuts – incentive to sell land
• Developers’ profits – green space seen as costly
Planning and green
infrastructure

22. Opportunities:
Obesity crisis – parks get people active
Flooding – vegetation reduces water run-off
Developers’ profits – green space starting to
be seen as an asset
Planning and green infrastructure

23. Opportunities:
The planning system can ensure that money
from developments are used to fund the creation
and maintenance of parks and green spaces.
Both ‘section 106’ and CIL money can be used.
http://www.tcpa.org.uk/pages/built-today-
treasured-tomorrow.html
Planning and green infrastructure

24. Multifunctional benefits of strategically designed
networks of green infrastructure:
• Urban cooling
• Reduced water run-off to drains
• Better mental health
• Better physical health
• Social cohesion
• Economic attractiveness
• Active travel
• Biodiversity…
Making the case for green infrastructure

25. A rapidly growing network of 1,000+
people and organisations that promote
green infrastructure, share
information, influence decision-
makers…
Set up by government as a result of
the Natural Environment White Paper,
managed by the TCPA since 2014
Free to join – see:
www.gip-uk.org
Making the case for green infrastructure

26. Thank you!
Julia Thrift
Projects Director
TCPA
julia.thrift@tcpa.org.uk
@GIPartnership
@juliathrift
www.tcpa.org.uk
www.gip-uk.org

27. Feel Good
+Increased perceived
health
+Social cohesion – meeting
places
+Trees and psychological
perceptions
+Happiness, friendliness,
assertiveness
- Sadness, annoyance, fear
- Blood pressures and stress
+Seasonal connectivity
chrisbeardshaw.com

28. Social Activity
Increased use of common
space where trees present
Predictor of social ties
-more social activity
-more visitors
-more neighbourly
-more support
-increased feeling of
belonging
90% increase in green space
use
83% increase in socialising
chrisbeardshaw.com

29. Crime - Public Gardens & Parks
Vegetation reduces crime
-low fear
-lower incivilities
-less aggressive behaviour
-less violent behaviour
Designing out crime?
-Trees
-Management
-Relevance
-Nature
Housing complex
52% less total crime
48%less property crime
56% less violent crime
chrisbeardshaw.com

30. Role Model
•Planning requirements
•Design policies
•Integrated to allied
facilities
•Enhance sense of place
•Informed professional
•Accountable LA
•Community consultation
•Green space allocation per
population
chrisbeardshaw.com

31. Design Specifics
•Accessible – 2km
•Surfaces
•Feel safe
•Wildlife
•Cross culture + generation
•Attractive
•Well kept
•Sub divided = multi use
•Seasonality
•Coherent and complex
planting response
•Good horticulture
•Robust elegance
•Integrated management
proposals
chrisbeardshaw.com

32.  The garden is a place of pleasure, filled with joy, but it
resounds in love, laments of poets; it is a refuge for
private meditation; it is a place for feasts,
entertainment for friends, a place of sexual and
intellectual freedom, a setting for philosophical
discussions, and a restorative for both the body and
soul. It is a well ordered model of the universe, an
experiment in immortality a never ending apparition of
spring. It assumes the function of a sculpture gallery, a
horticultural encyclopaedia, a centre of botanical and
medical research, and a theatre for fantastic imitation.
Finally it is a perpetual source of moral instruction.
 Battisti - Natura Artificiosa.

33. Session 2: Designed gardens & landscapes for health & wellbeing
1055 Dr Val Kirby
Designing Landscapes for Health & Wellbeing
1105 Julia Thrift (TCPA)
Planning, Green Infrastructure and Health & Wellbeing
1115 Chris Beardshaw
Designing Gardens for Health & Wellbeing
1125 Questions on Session 2