Healthy New Towns

NHS England’s Five Year Forward View identified new housing developments as an opportunity to rethink how health and social care services are provided to those communities. As part of their delivery plan they launched an ambitious new initiative to put health at the heart of new neighbourhoods and towns across the country.

The Housing LIN is a member of the consortia, led by the Town and Country Planning Association, working with NHS England that has helped to develop Healthy New Town (HNT) guidance for the housebuilding and health sectors to support knowledge diffusion. Other members of the group include the The King’s Fund and The Young Foundation.

As part of our commitment, we have created a selection of pages that provide background information on the HNT programme and the 10 demonstrator sites, as well as signpost to relevant thought-leadership, a range of tools and guidance, and examples of practice.

About the Healthy New Towns Programme - An introduction into the Healthy New Towns Programme, identifying its aims and ambitions.
The 10 HNT demonstrator sites - Links to all 10 demonstrator sites that aim to develop best practice, case studies and guidance to help ensure all new housing developments embed certain principles.
Blogs and examples of practice - On this page you will find a selection of guest blogs published by the Housing LIN.
Tools & guidance - On this page you will find a selection of tools and resources to help you make the link between housing and planning for better health outcomes.

Chief Medical Officer's Annual Report 2024: Health in Cities

Professor Whitty’s report outlines a broad range of health opportunities and challenges for city populations and includes case studies from core cities in England. Amongst the health challenges addressed are the health effects of housing and the built environment, and that the barriers to maintaining health of those ageing in cities can be high.

Planning for 21st Century HAPPI New Towns

In this blog, Kevin McGeough, Head of Strategy and Placemaking at Ebbsfleet, talks about the evolution of 21st century New Towns, drawing from the UK’s proud legacy of planned communities that improved health and productivity.

Health, hope and prosperity: a vision for healthy new towns

This briefing from the Town and Country Planning Association sets out the high-level preconditions necessary to create a healthy new town and reflects on some of the key lessons that need to inform future thinking, outlining the kind of vision for healthy places that will be vital to securing high-quality outcomes in new towns.

Towards a neighbourhood health service: A new partnership between community and the state

This paper from Local Trust looks at health disparities at the neighbourhood level, offering recommendations the government can take to improve health outcomes and shift towards prevention and a neighbourhood focused health service.

What creates healthy cities?

The Commission on Creating Healthy Cities, chaired by Lord Best and Kellogg College’s Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation, Oxford, investigated the links between urban matters and health and wellbeing. Their resultant report brings together a set of recommendations, which follow under four headings, including the built environment.

Designing healthier neighbourhoods: a systematic review of the impact of the neighbourhood design on health and wellbeing

This paper in Taylor & Francis’ online Cities & Health issue, maps the impact of the neighbourhood design on health and wellbeing and evaluate the quality of the evidence underpinning such associations.