Creating healthier food environments through the planning system
Obesity continues to be significant health and social problem, especially due to its links with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. One potential solution is to change our environment so we are better equipped to make healthier food choices, however, as you can imagine, this is easier said than done!
A tool that can be used to help shape the environment with help from Local Authorities is the Planning System. Many of our towns and cities are full of hot food takeaway outlets and unless you are made of stone (or perhaps a public health researcher?), there will come a day when your motivation is low and you don’t have time to cook a meal, making the local takeaway feel like the obvious solution. But, if we can limit the number of takeaways and improve access to healthier food, we can encourage individuals to make healthier choices.
Research has shown that just over half of Local Authorities in England use the planning system to limit the number of hot food takeaways in their area, with 34% doing so with public health in mind. The most well-known example of this policy is setting a minimum distance a new takeaway must be from local schools, usually set at 400-800m away.
However, when a newly proposed takeaway is rejected, the owner has the right to appeal the decision. This appeal moves the decision from the Local Authority to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) on behalf of the Secretary of State.
Our research looked at the ins-and-outs of this process. Specifically:
- What are the influences behind a decision by the Planning Inspectorate?
- How is the Planning Inspectorate perceived by professionals involved in the process?
- What barriers do Local Authorities need to overcome to win a case?
- What factors make for a better chance of success?
The main findings from our interviews were that:
- there was a discrepancy between what public health professionals, planners and the Planning Inspectorate considered to be public health evidence; and
- how public health professionals countered this with their enthusiasm to try and shape healthier environments.
“I think there seems to be an expectation from the public health side of things that planning will provide policy…like restricting take-aways will be the end of it from a health point of view, and of course planning is not actually designed to do that.”
This perceived constraint that health-based evidence was not given enough weight in decisions was offset by the enthusiasm of public health professionals to limit hot food takeaways in their area. They were often very proactive in defending appeal cases, stressing the importance of communication across a Local Authority, finding robust statistical evidence (as opposed to ‘anecdotal qualitative evidence’), and having good knowledge of their local area. Having this information in a Local Authority’s Local Plan (this guides decisions on future development proposals and addresses the needs and opportunities of the area) supported this activity and removed the need for re-researching the area for each application.Planning Officer
“It's all well and good having the policy but it needs the evidence as well to back it up. So, having access to the public health team and the public health evidence is a really, really relevant part of the appeals process”
Planning policy can be used to successfully limit the number of takeaways within a local area. However, if such policies are to be used reliably to prevent their spread in our towns, public health professionals need adequate support to defend appeals, and planning needs to give greater consideration to public health evidence.Public Health Professional
Read the research paper here: Regulatory mechanisms to create healthier environments: planning appeals and hot food takeaways in England
