Project Overview

Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity commissioned Catherine, Future of London and the King’s Fund to scope ways in which they could help tackle health inequalities in Lambeth and Southwark through action on housing. This is one strand in a major 10-year programme focusing on how people living in diverse urban communities develop multiple long-term health conditions.  Our work identified a range of opportunities spanning housing design, climate change resilience, planning policy, capacity-building, and integrated approaches to housing, health and social care.

Catherine is collaborating with Shared Assets to support Camden and Islington councils’ joint Parks for Health programme. This is one of eight Future Parks locations supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Trust.  Over the course of 2020-21, we will be working with the green space and public health teams to expand and diversify how local parks are used and maintained by different groups, and supporting council teams and the local voluntary and community sector to work together in innovative ways for better health outcomes.

Barking Riverside in London and Northstowe in Cambridgeshire are two Healthy New  Town demonstrator sites sponsored by NHS England. As co-lead of the Barking Riverside development phase, Catherine produced a funded delivery plan based on researcher and practitioner input of evidence and good practice alongside extensive community engagement. Integral to the approach are 10 Healthy New Town Principles now embedded in the S106 agreement between the council and developer. In Northstowe, Catherine worked with landscape architects Chris Blandford Associates and Tim Gill of Rethinking Childhood to devise a play and healthy living strategy which was shortlisted for the prestigious Landscape Institute Awards 2018.