Does real estate hold the key to fixing the UK’s health crisis?

Across the world this month, millions, if not billions of individuals are promising themselves that they are going to be healthier. That they are going to get outside more, breathe fresh air, and that they are going to move more, eat better and look after themselves. January is the month when almost everyone at least attempts to have a healthy start to the year. Perhaps property could do the same. Late last month, a report from global health think tank the UCL Institute of Health Equity, sponsored by Legal & General and produced in partnership with the Quality of Life Foundation, called for health and wellbeing to be placed at the centre of housing strategy if the government is serious about creating an equitable UK. The report, Building Health Equity: The Role of the Property Sector in Improving Health, proposes a new way forward which it says will enable the property sector and national and local government to put health, wellbeing and environmental sustainability at the centre of how the UK builds and maintains homes, designs neighbourhoods and fosters communities. Currently, poor-quality housing costs the NHS some £1.4bn a year, with a broader societal cost of £18.5bn per annum. Investing £9bn in remedial work, says the report, could generate £135.5bn in societal benefits over 30 years, including £13bn of savings for the NHS. Pete Gladwell, group social impact and investment director at Legal & General, says the evidence on the intrinsic link between health and real estate – particularly housing – is overwhelming, and that key now is ensuring every player in the sector starts thinking about what it can do to reduce health inequities through the homes and places it delivers. “It’s about everyone in the industry recognising they can play a role,” says Gladwell. “If you care about this fundamental problem in society where people live dramatically differently, where life expectancy can vary by 20 years from one side of a city to another, and you’re in the property industry or the housing industry, then you can affect that. “That mindset of not thinking ‘Oh, that’s something that’s really shocking’ then going back to the day job, but instead thinking ‘My day job can influence that very directly’, is the kind of mindset shift we need.” He added: “People have gone through this with the environment and now do build a lot of environmental considerations into how they do business. The opportunity coming out of this report is to do the same with health inequalities and recognise that the industry has an equally massive role to play.” Benefits for all And it is a role that comes with huge benefits too, says Gladwell, with the commercial benefit of building places and spaces where people live longer and healthier lives being a very simple equation. “It’s really clear now that ill health is affecting our economic productivity as a nation,” adds Gladwell. “Academically, it’s a totally undisputable link. And even if, morally, you don’t care about this in terms of doing the right thing, if you care about the British economy growing or not paying too much tax or getting more planning permissions or being a partner of choice to local authorities, then care about it for those reasons instead, because there are lots of really strong commercial reasons that this is an imperative.” For Matthew Morgan, director and co-founder of the Quality of Life Foundation, change needs to come from business and through policy. And the government has started to listen. As it grapples with an overwhelmed NHS and a social care system on its knees, it has started to recognise the importance of planning, place and the built environment in enabling a healthier Britain. The new National Planning Policy Framework calls for planning policies and decisions to support healthy lives through the provision of safe and accessible green infrastructure, sports facilities, access to healthier food, allotments and layouts that encourage walking and cycling. Morgan says housing is fast becoming recognised as critical infrastructure and that this will be important when it comes to removing health inequalities. “There’s a basic understanding among a lot of people that housing is critical infrastructure. It is not just a mechanism for turning profit. It is a means for providing public good, and I think those housebuilders that don’t understand that are going to find that their opportunities are restricted in the future,” says Morgan. “I think that decisions will be made based on how well people can deliver on the priorities for government and for society, and if they’re not able to do that then I think they’ll find their opportunities diminish over time.” So making sure that real estate understands the role it has to play in improving the health and longevity of not just individuals but the economy is now a business imperative. Click here to read the report in full Image © Olga Kononenko/unsplash