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HEA5 - Delivering strong and safe communities and good quality neighbourhoods

HEA5 - Delivering strong and safe communities and good quality neighbourhoods

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Overview

The health and wellbeing of individuals is influenced by the communities in which they live and people's health can be affected by the nature of their physical environment.

Photo by Georg Arthur Pflueger
Photo by Nathan Anderson
Image Devonport Park

This Policy belongs to

Policy

The city will support strong and inclusive communities where people have a sense of belonging and ownership, feel safe and confident, with the opportunity to live, work and play in good quality sustainable neighbourhoods. This will be through:

  1. Delivering a new approach for providing essential and accessible community facilities which host a range of modern services, that inspire learning and improve health and wellbeing.
  2. Ensuring the voice of children, young people and families is canvassed and valued and influences community developments.
  3. Encouraging schools to play a core hub role within communities so that facilities can be used for the benefit of the local community.
  4. Delivering a partnership approach to tackle crime and disorder that causes the most harm and affects those most at risk. This approach will be complimented by well considered use of the planning process and by enabling greater community control to implement local solutions.
  5. Reducing opportunities for crime and the fear of crime by requiring all new development to incorporate good design principles.
  6. Providing for good emergency vehicle accessibility in new developments and infrastructure projects and encouraging the installation of sprinkler systems in properties which accommodate children and vulnerable adults, including schools, residential care homes and special housing.
  7. In neighbourhoods where people are disadvantaged and do not have equal chances, providing specific support to local communities and consider targeted regeneration and other interventions as appropriate to promote inclusive growth. The local planning authority (LPA) will support this by identifying sites for development and considering proposals for development in terms of the extent to which they deliver the principle of sustainable linked neighbourhoods, strengthen communities and address inequality, including where appropriate, using its planning powers to control the number of betting shops, fixed odds betting terminals and pay day lenders in the city.
  8. Strengthening communities to build upon social value and social movement so that people have control of the communities where they live.

Rationale

The health and wellbeing of individuals is influenced by the communities in which they live and people's health can be affected by the nature of their physical environment. Improving access to good quality facilities such as libraries or places of worship, strengthening community relations, promoting a sense of pride and improving access to green spaces all impact positively on an individual's physical and mental health and overall feelings of safety.

People are at the heart of our communities so it is important that they are seen as being central to the development of safe and sustainable neighbourhoods, that their views are sought and listened to and they feel empowered to find their own solutions or play a part in decisions that will affect them. Organisations and developers working in the city need to recognise and invest in creating neighbourhoods that support strong communities that will result in long term benefits such as increased social value and activity, and improve opportunities in disadvantaged communities.

The city will develop an integrated approach to deliver high quality and co-ordinated services and interventions for young people and adults. These will protect those groups most at risk and will aim to reduce re-offending and tackle crime/anti-social behaviour, including domestic abuse and sexual violence, modern slavery, child exploitation, cyber crime and fraud, as well as the causes and impacts of hate crime and drug and alcohol related harm in the city.

The city needs to create safe and accessible neighbourhoods where crime and disorder, and the fear of crime, do not undermine quality of life or community cohesion. This will require neighbourhoods and the built environment to maximise opportunities for good natural surveillance, thoughtful design and use of public spaces and facilities, including those of local schools, and intelligent use of high quality public realm and street-lighting design so that it allows people to have a sense of safety and pride about the environments where they live. Additionally, it is important that development, especially that which will accommodate vulnerable users, should be designed to minimise the risk of fire and be accessible to all emergency services

Delivery and related documents

Vision

A Healthy City

This is about enabling all of the city’s people to enjoy an outstanding quality of life, including happy, healthy, safe and fulfilled lives.

Open Vision Stroke 1 Copy A healthy city

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