A partnership designed to help residents live healthier and more active lives has expanded.
The Healthy Places and Communities Partnership – made up of housing providers Amplius, bpha and Peabody alongside Public Health, BeActive Bedfordshire and the Chartered Institute of Housing – has now also welcomed the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA).
The partnership is also helping deliver Sport England’s ‘Place Universal Offer’ across Bedfordshire, which connects housing and health with physical activity to tackle inequalities in communities.
Liz Parsons, Director of Community Investment at Amplius, said: “We’re delighted to welcome the TCPA to the partnership. Their expertise in healthy placemaking will strengthen our work and help us explore how housing providers can use policy and practice to create healthier, more active places.
“We’re already working together on a series of practical guides and are looking forward to building on that through the partnership.”
Gemma Hyde, Projects and Policy Manager at the TCPA, added: “Where people live has a profound influence on their opportunities to be healthy and active. Housing providers have an important role to play, not just through the homes they provide but through the neighbourhoods, spaces and partnerships they help shape.
“We’re really pleased to join the Healthy Places and Communities Partnership and to bring our healthy placemaking and long-term stewardship expertise into a collaboration that is focused on turning that understanding into practical action for communities.”