RTPI Scotland has responded to response to the Scottish Government's consultation on a new National Public Health body: 'Public Health Scotland'. RTPI Scotland welcomes the establishment of Public Health Scotland (PHS). Scotland faces major challenges in terms of public health. The quality of the places where we live, work and play have a major impact upon people's behaviour. Quality placemaking is evidenced to promote healthy behaviours, environmental health, mental and physical wellbeing, and achieve greater equity in health.
Planning is fundamental to delivering healthier places in the long-term, RTPI Scotland therefore understands the importance of this opportunity to reconnect public health and planning. Through upstream preventative interventions associated with quality placemaking, town planning should be seen as a crucial preventative’ investment to drive transformative change and secure a healthier built environment. Therefore in setting up PHS its remit needs to make a clear, considered and strong connection with the planning system. RTPI Scotland considers that, in its current form, the consultation document has failed to make this connection explicit enough.
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