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Health Impact Assessments in Planning: A Practical Resource Hub

About This Hub This hub serves as a practical starting point for planners, developers, and consultants seeking to understand and deliver high-quality Health Impact Assessments (HIAs). Whether you're new to HIA or looking to review your workflow, this page connects you with all our structured guidance, introduces the place data and review tools on PlaceChangers, and several real-world examples. PlaceChangers is a digital platform purpose-built to support design teams with key planning activitie

27 May 2025 • 4 min read • By Seb Weise

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Health Impact Assessments in Planning: A Practical Resource Hub

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Health Impact Assessments in Planning: A Practical Resource Hub

27 May 2025 4 min read

Mapping Progress: Defining Local Impact Areas in Urban Development

Intro Increasingly, housing and regeneration organisations like Homes England adopted a place-based regeneration approach, integrating the meticulous definition of local impact areas as a cornerstone of project delivery, underscoring their pivotal role in ensuring targeted, beneficial outcomes for communities, supporting health impact assessments, and outcome monitoring. For the UK Green Book identifies an approach referred to as Place-Based Analysis: ‘Place Based Analysis concerns appraisal a

4 April 2024 6 min read

Unlock place potential: Transforming housing data into action

Intro - on the importance of housing data In the ever-evolving landscape of urban development, the key to creating thriving communities lies in the precision of our planning. This blog post delves into the importance of accurate housing data in planning new developments that better integrate with their surroundings. PlaceChangers is a leading proptech starting to make granular housing data easy to use source for town planners. Join us as we explore how data-driven decisions pave the way for su

25 September 2023 5 min read

Unlocking urban insights: How place analytics compare to traditional GIS

In town planning and property development, the significance of data analytics cannot be overstated. With urbanisation on the rise and cities becoming more complex, data analytics has emerged as a critical tool for informed decision-making and efficient project execution. By harnessing the power of data, town planners and property developers can gain valuable insights into demographic trends, infrastructure needs, market demand, and environmental considerations. These insights enable stakeholder

13 August 2023 5 min read

Impact investing in housing – how to make a difference

In 1994, John Elkington coined the phrase Triple Bottom Line (TBL), a sustainability framework that examines a company’s social, environmental, and economic impact. It placed environmental and social aims within financial objectives as demonstrated by its 3Ps - Profit, People and Planet. The triple bottom line approach has been hard to translate into actions. Over decades, individuals and organisations have invested large resources in corporate social responsibility but failed to move the need

29 November 2022 5 min read

Enhancing project briefs with robust place data

The success of any construction or regeneration project depends heavily on the strength of its business case and the evidence of need. This is where a well-informed project brief comes in, providing a practical design response from architects, addressing concerns of external stakeholders and helping secure funding and resources to make the project a reality. But success isn't just about meeting financial targets - it's also about designing for the user, whether they're tenants, buyers, shoppers

1 November 2022 6 min read

How can house builders influence improved health outcomes?

Housing projects can deliver improved health outcomes. Local councils increasingly request Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) in the UK as part of validation requirements for large built environment projects which focus on improved health outcomes for residents. Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) are a structured review of a construction project's health and wellbeing impacts on the neighbouring communities and future occupants. Environmental Impact Assessments tend to be overly focused on ecologic

19 July 2022 7 min read

What is a Ped Shed and what is it good for?

This article is about 'ped sheds', or walking-distance-based analysis of a place. Read on how ped shed analysis can help you better understand a place and devise powerful strategies for intervention supporting accessibility. The Covid19 pandemic accelerated interest in health, wellbeing and walkable cities. Access to facilities and green spaces was critical for citizens' physical and mental health. Lockdown restrictions allowed and encouraged people to get outside and have an hour of physical e

1 February 2022 4 min read

Building design quality into the business case for your next housing project

With the end of Robert Jenrick’s tenure as Secretary of State for housing, and indeed the end of MHCLG (to be replaced by DLUHC), it would appear that the Government’s ambitious strategy to revolutionise the English planning system has been shelved. This is a shame, as one of the key drivers of the proposed reforms was an overhaul of the country’s geospatial open datasets to improve outcomes in the built environment. This agenda is no less critical to the concept of “levelling up,” which is, abo

12 October 2021 9 min read

Incorporating trees in new developments

Incorporating trees in new development planning has benefits for the environment, for the health and wellbeing of residents, and can be a smart choice for your business case and general property development strategy. Well designed sites that provide for greater biodiversity within the site boundary are increasingly a must when it comes to considering net zero development strategies. In the UK, the government has recently emphasised that new developments should include street trees. The National

5 October 2021 5 min read

Understanding health and wellbeing in Bensham through local data

In March 2021, tired of working from my bedroom and deciding I could probably afford a bit more in rent, I started poking about on Zoopla, looking at two-bed places. After a few viewings, I ended up with a shortlist in the neighbourhood of Bensham, in Gateshead. Naturally, I pulled up the area on PlaceChangers Site Insights . Site Insights is PlaceChangers' cutting-edge site analysis tool. Recently released, the tool gives developers and local authorities a rapid and accessible understanding

3 August 2021 9 min read

Building for Success: How BREEAM Communities and Building for Healthy Life Assessment improve construction projects

Demand for new build homes is at an all-time high, this means quality can often take a back seat to volume build. While people may attribute this to poor build quality, substandard materials, or incorrect fixtures requiring snagging, it may also be due to the urban design and town planning principles that underpin the new development, including how the land is used and connected to its wider community context. At PlaceChangers we provide digital tools to ensure developments support the health a

16 February 2021 6 min read

Amplifying positive impact: Unlocking the full potential of developer contributions

Since mid last year, here at PlaceChangers we have been working on a research and development project supported by InnovateUK, the UK Government's Innovation Agency. The project aimed at helping developers incorporate health and wellbeing considerations into their projects at an early design stage. Incorporating health and wellbeing at an early stage can be maximised if the proposed outcomes for local improvements can be aligned with the development project. This is where developer contribution

6 January 2021 7 min read

Building the 20-minute neighbourhood – Lessons from Mambourin

Melbourne's approach to planning healthy neighbourhoods has become well known for its ambition to create easily walkable places. Under the banner of the '20-minute neighbourhood', walkability is a key planning principle for Melbourne, Australia, via Victoria State Government's 35-year Melbourne plan. The concept has gained traction in many other places around the globe. In the UK, the Town and Country Planning Association and Sport England explored the transferability of the 20-minute neighbou

27 October 2020 4 min read

Making community consultation part of health impact assessments

This article is part of our series on Health Impact Assessments, an appraisal that many UK local councils require for larger major applications, often with 100 homes on-site and more. Health impact assessments provide an opportunity to reflect on the various impacts a project has on the long-term wellbeing of residents impacted by that development. Residents include those already living in the neighbourhood and those future tenants or homeowners moving into the development. Rather than seeing

31 July 2020 5 min read

What is a health impact assessment for planning applications? Why should you care?

Health Impact Assessments are still relatively new in the planning domain. So if you arrived here wondering what is a health impact assessment for a major planning application, you are in the right place! Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) for planning applications focus on how a development proposal will impact residents' well-being and how any negative impacts can be mitigated or improved upon. While Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) have become a statutory requirement for most planning a

16 July 2020 7 min read

Social value in master plans: Proactive engagement and post-occupancy reviews

Why should we care about social value in master planning? In England, the drive to deliver up to 300,000 homes each year has often emphasised numbers of output, which is not always reflected in the quality of the end product. What's needed is a house building agenda based on quality developments, that stand the test of time, not only in terms of 'raw' performance numbers but also in terms of the ability to build strong quality communities that have access to the social amenities for a good l

25 April 2019 6 min read