Urban interventions to support mental wellbeing

During Mental Health Awareness week, this episode brought together a researcher (Josh Artus, The Centric Lab), educator (Mark Southgate, MOBIE), lawyer (Helen Mitcheson, Trower Hamlins), urban designer (Barry Williams, Barton Willmore) and ecologist (Ben Kite, Ecological Planning & Research) to discuss what interventions they would prioritise to tackle the significant and growing challenge of mental health in urban environments. There is no doubt that this crisis has exposed societal inequalities across the UK, as well as major aspects of urban life that, when mobility is removed, become serious threats the mental wellbeing for people of all ages. 

The priorities of our panelists were wide reaching but intrinsically linked including:

• The careful consideration of space – internal and external 
• The barrier of land use zoning and how it has stolen our ability to wander 
• A need for the co-existence of nature and urbanity
• The hugely significant impact of air pollution as a human stressor
• The function of our streets and the opportunity this presents for adoption of place

Have a listen to hear more on all these themes and why  ‘health coding before design coding’ needs to be the new normal, for all planning, design and legislative change.