CIEH backs campaign for healthy homes

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) has backed a Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) campaign for healthy homes.

The campaign is promoting amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would require the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to consider health promotion when discharging their planning functions. It is also promoting twelve “Healthy Homes Principles” for new homes.

Dr Jill Stewart, Associate Professor in Public Health at the University of Greenwich and a member of the CIEH Housing Advisory Panel, said in a video clip for the campaign: “Good housing supports physical and mental health and safety, it saves costs to the health and social care sector and it enables communities to flourish.” She said the campaign went to the very roots of what the environmental health profession values and strives for.

CIEH is also on the list of signatories to an open letter from the Local Government Association (LGA) supporting an amendment that would remove a range of permitted development rights through which sub-standard homes have been created.

Dr Stewart’s video clip can be found on the TCPA website here along with further information about the campaign and the amendments. The open letter on permitted development rights can be found on the LGA website here (with a drop down list of signatories). The Lords report stage of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will begin on 20 October.

Mark Elliott, President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, said:

“We are delighted to support this campaign. Environmental health practitioners play a crucial role in tackling poor housing conditions and thereby reducing ill health and saving lives. We want the homes being created today to be as healthy and safe as they can be in order to support the wellbeing of people now and in future generations.”