Recommendations and an evidence review from the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee inquiry into children, young people and the built environment
(December 2024)
For decades, governments, policy makers and the planning system in England have failed to create places and spaces where children and young people develop well and thrive.
Poorly planned and designed homes, streets, neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities have harmed children and young people’s development, physical and mental health, undermined their quality of life and negatively impacted on their life chances and opportunities as adults. Critically, children from the most deprived backgrounds are even more likely to have poorer health outcomes.
In November 2023, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) Committee launched an inquiry looking at how better planning, building and urban design in England could enhance the health and wellbeing of children and young people. They received evidence from over 130 organisations and individuals. However, when the general election was called in May 2024 the committee was dissolved before it had published its report and recommendations to government.
With a new Labour government comes new opportunities; the party’s 2024 Manifesto set out a ‘bold new ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children in our history’.
Arguably nothing says more about the state
Labour Party Manifesto, 2024
of a nation than the wellbeing of its children.
So right at the core of our mission will be a bold
new ambition to raise the healthiest generation
of children in our history.
Raising the healthiest generation in history: why it matters where children and young people live takes the rich evidence base that the inquiry gathered and:
- Draws out recommendations for Westminster government ministers and departments, based on the evidence submitted to the inquiry.
- Provides a summary of the evidence submitted to the inquiry across seven themes
- Government structures and ways of working
- Rights of the child
- The planning system and child/youth voice
- Streets, neighbourhoods and mobility
- Play: access and attitudes
- Green spaces and nature
- Healthy homes.
- Lists the case studies highlighted through the inquiry process.
The report has been written by the TCPA in collaboration with the group who initially called for the inquiry: Playing Out, Fields in Trust, childhood expert Tim Gill and architect Dinah Bornat.
