(A TCPA – APSE report. June 2025)
The places where people live and work shape the decisions they are able to make: in places where unhealthy food is readily available and highly promoted it is harder for people to make healthy choices. Many councils are working to ensure the healthy choice is the easy and affordable choice – and the planning system is one of many ‘tools’ they have to do this. However, throughout the country councils are keen to do far more.
The government’s cross-cutting health mission has an ambition for ‘a fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer’. For this to happen, councils must be empowered to ensure that hot-food takeaways and advertisements for unhealthy food are not unfairly concentrated in communities with the poorest health. This report recommends amendments to planning policy and regulation – relatively minor updates that would empower councils to do so much more to support the health of their communities.
