Seite - 433 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

433 new government policy and its implementation (DH 2010a, b). Government guidance on the planning system states that local planning authorities should ensure that health and well-being and health infrastructure are considered in  local and neighbourhood plans and in planning decision making. However, the use of HIA in the UK is only recommended as one way of considering the issues: “A health impact assessment may be a useful tool to use where there are expected to be significant impacts” (Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government 2014). Nonetheless, this guidance regards GI as a tool to link health and planning. It names safe and green open spaces as places for active play and food growing, and identifies green space accessibility by walking, cycling and public transport as attributes of a healthy community. To gain insight into the current trend of incorporating health issues into the UK’s spatial plans, an analysis of ten English planning documents has been carried out: six Core Strategies/Local Plans and four GI Strategies, all published or adopted in 2010 or later.4 The planning documents were chosen to cover municipalities differ- ing from one another in terms of inhabitants, size and geographical location as well as legal liability (Local Plans and Core Strategies being statutory, GI Strategies being informal and voluntary).5 The findings show that all planning documents deal with human health, but in different ways. All six Core Strategies/Local Plans mention health issues only implicitly, mainly in the context of climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as flood defense, thereby strongly targeting health protection. In contrast, all four GI Strategies explicitly name the improvement of health, due to the establishment or improvement of GI, as an objective, aim, or vision, and clearly refer to health pro- motion (e.g. encouraging active exercise in green spaces), while health protection plays a subordinated role in most cases. Nonetheless, both kinds of planning docu- ments address physical activity by identifying the need for high-quality walking and cycling routes. However, differing reasons are given: Core Strategies/Local Plans mainly justify this on the basis of reduced vehicle emissions, improved safety of pedestrians and cyclists, as well as less congestion; whereas GI Strategies strongly promote access to the outdoors to encourage physical activity, leading to reduced obesity and respiratory diseases. Again, GI Strategies connect green structures and health more directly and explicitly. 4 Core Strategies/Local Plans: Aylesbury Vale; South Kesteven; Bath & North East Somerset; Manchester; Lewisham; and Oxford.  GI Strategies: Aylesbury Vale; South Kesteven; Bath & North East Somerset; and Manchester. When investigating the chosen planning documents, implicit as well as explicit references to health aspects have been documented to ensure a thorough analysis. A keyword-search was con- ducted. To find explicit references to health issues, search terms like ‘health,’ ‘physical activity,’ etc. were used. Implicit references were documented when statements revealed links to health issues without explicitly naming them (e.g. recreation, air pollution control, groundwater purifica- tion, climate change adaptation, and mitigation, etc.). Finally, the documented statements were assigned to either health protection or health promotion. 5 Note that ten planning documents only depict a small extract of the recent situation in the UK’s planning system  where legislative requirements differ between the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Therefore, a generalization on the entire UK situation is not pos- sible. However, this analysis can be seen as a starting point for further investigation. 19 Linking Landscape Planning and  Health