Prepared head of UKREiiF 2025 by Josh Dickerson – Director of Healthy Places
As we shape the cities of tomorrow, the real challenge isn’t just about building more homes or infrastructure—it’s about creating places that improve lives. In a world grappling with health inequalities, social isolation, and climate instability, health-led placemaking is no longer an optional extra. It’s a necessity.
At BWB and Deetu, we believe every project is a health project. Whether it’s a transport interchange, regeneration scheme or business park, we help our clients design for health, equity, and resilience—building places that people want to live in, invest in, and be proud of.
This year at UKREiiF, our message is simple: the most sustainable, investable and liveable places are those that prioritise health from the ground up.
Why health is a developer’s business
According to the ONS in England, people living in the poorest neighbourhoods die on average seven years earlier than those in the richest, and live seventeen fewer years in good health. That’s not just a public health emergency; it’s a spatial inequality embedded in the built environment.
“The consensus is that the NHS provides about 20–30% of the things that keep us healthy. The overwhelming majority of the factors that keep us healthy are the places where we live and work, and the environments in which we find ourselves.”
—Julia Thrift, Director of Healthier Placemaking, TCPA
Put simply: how we shape places shapes people. And with urbanisation accelerating, this influence is only growing. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, the global urban population will rise to nearly 7 billion, meaning more people than ever will rely on the health of their environment to thrive.
Developers, local authorities, and investors are recognising that poor placemaking leads to long-term costs: in healthcare, community resistance, and reputational risk. But great places—designed for connection, movement, and wellbeing—unlock value that compounds over time.
Making the invisible, visible
Embedding health in planning and development doesn’t mean creating sterile, clinical environments. It means using evidence-based, people-first design to make places where people feel good and function better.
This starts with reframing design questions. Not “how many car parking spaces are required?” but “how will people of all ages and abilities move safely and actively through this space?” Not “can we include some landscaping?” but “how do we use nature to reduce exposure to pollutants, heat, and stress?”
In our projects, we integrate:
- Mobility-first layouts with active travel corridors and low-carbon transport hubs—not as afterthoughts, but as central infrastructure.
- Intergenerational design that brings together families, older residents, and young people in places that reduce loneliness and improve safety.
- Engagement tools that reach beyond public consultation to involve communities in shaping the outcomes that matter to them.
- Air quality-conscious planning, looking not just at emissions but exposure—a vital distinction as research confirms there’s no safe limit for particulate matter like PM2.5.
- Play, pause, and dwell spaces that invite social interaction, cultural activity, and mental restoration.
The most effective design choices are rarely the most expensive. They’re the most intentional.
Gen Z, investment, and the new ESG
In another UKREiiF thought leadership piece, we explored how Gen Z and Gen Alpha are reshaping investment trends and pushing for meaningful, measurable ESG. They expect the places they live and work to reflect their values on climate, equity, and health.
For this generation, tokenistic greenwashing won’t cut it. If your scheme doesn’t align with their expectations—walkable, sustainable, affordable, inclusive—it won’t attract their attention, let alone their loyalty.
As the future source of investment funds, their mindset also shapes where capital flows. Whether it’s social impact funds, green bonds or pension-backed regeneration vehicles, investors seek places that prove their health and wellbeing credentials, not just claim them.
Connected thinking: Health, Nature and Infrastructure
Healthy placemaking doesn’t sit in a silo. It connects with many of the critical agendas shaping UK development:
- Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) helps quantify how green infrastructure supports physical and mental wellbeing, giving policymakers a shared language for valuing parks, trees, and open space.
- Energy Infrastructure is essential to supporting warm, dry, affordable homes and enabling sustainable mobility. Poor access to energy contributes to damp, cold housing and long-term health problems.
- Planning Reform and Design Codes increasingly require demonstrable health outcomes, whether through Health Impact Assessments, Building for a Healthy Life principles or active travel infrastructure that meets standards like LTN 1/20.
We believe the future of planning is joined-up, data-informed, and deeply human.
A roadmap for resilient placemaking
So, how can local authorities, developers and design teams embed health meaningfully in their projects? We recommend three core principles:
- Design with health in mind from day one
Decisions made early – on layout, density, orientation, and access, are the most powerful. Consider health at the concept stage, not as a post-planning add-on. - Plan for people, not just policy
Meeting local plan requirements is important. But the real prize is places that people stay in, feel proud of, and recommend to others. That’s where value lies. - Measure what matters
Build in evaluation: Track how people move, use space, feel safer, or feel more connected. Monitor wellbeing outcomes to strengthen funding cases and future-proof schemes.
Building places that heal
The Health and Social Care Committee put it bluntly in early 2024:
“It is frustrating that more progress has not been made already. A determined focus on developing ‘healthy places’ that can prevent ill-health amongst those most at risk is now vital.”
We agree. But we also believe the solutions already exist.
We’ve delivered them through climate-conscious design, youth engagement platforms, active travel corridors, SUDs-led masterplans, and more. What we need now is the will to make health central to every scheme, not just those labelled ‘regeneration’ or ‘ESG’.
Because when places are built to support physical, mental and social wellbeing, they do more than reduce harm—they enable potential.
They are more resilient, more equitable, and ultimately more investable.