Embedded Capacity:

Fostering Collaboration Between Public Health, Transport Planning, and Planning Departments Across South Tees – Creating Active and Healthy Places Lead

To support Sport England nationally around what they can learn from Place Partnerships, YGT’s David McAleavey has written a blog about his role as the Creating Active and Healthy Places Lead across South Tees. This blog forms part of a Sport England learning resource on the approaches to investing in capacity to support place based systemic working. From the learning to date, it has become evident that having the right capacity in the right place can enable successful place-based, whole-system change. David’s role highlights in detail the journey YGT have taken so far, and how David is leading the way on fostering collaboration between Public Health, Transport Planning, and Planning Departments with Local Authorities , when it comes to embedding physical activity in to ways of working.

Background – the process that led to the creation of the post

Hello, I’m Dr David McAleavey, a behavioural scientist and public health spatial planner. Before I outline some of the projects I’ve contributed to in my first year working across South Tees, I’ll give you a little of the background to the creation of my post – Creating Active and Healthy Places Lead.

The initial consideration of the significance of spatial planning in creating population level increases in physical activity was articulated through the You’ve Got This (YGT) programme – the Sport England funded place partnership in South Tees. YGT has adopted the socio-ecological approach to systemic change, where policy and the physical environment are highlighted as key components of the wider determinants of health. These aspects are recognised as carrying a high weighting in this framework – difficult to influence, but the changes once achieved are highly impactful over the medium and long-term. Hence, the creation of my post aimed to improve collaboration between public health, transport planning, and planning departments across South Tees to promote physical activity through the Local Plan and the wider policy framework.

Previous attempts to enhance collaboration across South Tees had faltered due to time constraints and heavy workloads. Recognising this, YGT facilitated initial meetings where planners, transport planners, and public health practitioners could gather away from the office environment. Utilising YGT’s “sludge, budge, and nudge” audit technique, participants delved deeper into the barriers hindering progress and explored potential solutions. This process revealed issues such as a limited understanding of each other’s roles and decision-making processes, alongside a shared commitment to creating healthier environments and a strong desire to collaborate. To jump ahead to my own experience in post, I think our ongoing commitment to processes like this has made a significant difference in realising our common goals of a healthier and more physically active population. This commitment involves embracing the complexity of competing demands on colleagues across spatial planning in South Tees – both in strategic policy and development management roles – and public health and Sport England.

Over the course of a year, three additional workshop sessions were convened to further explore these issues. Concurrently, through Sport England’s partnership with the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), YGT established a new relationship with a TCPA expert (Gemma Hyde), who played a pivotal role in charting a path forward. The culmination of these efforts brought together senior planners, transport planners, and public health practitioners, supported by Sport England, TCPA, and the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). Despite initial slow progress, participants valued the time for reflection and identified key issues like capacity and staff training. Collectively, it was agreed that there were specific challenges related to coordinating the work and addressing the need for knowledge and training among staff and elected members. To support the process, YGT agreed to fund a position initially for a period of two years. This role would encompass the whole of South Tees, with Middlesbrough Council (MC) serving as the employer.

A different approach to recruitment

An obstacle arose at this point concerning the recruitment of an individual with the appropriate skill set for the role. With existing planning vacancies in the Local Authorities, recruitment was anticipated to be challenging and high-risk. In response, TCPA suggested engaging with Public Practice, an organisation that assists in placing practitioners with planning skills from the private to the public sector. This approach was deemed suitable as it would facilitate a closer match of skills without resorting to open recruitment.

However, the use of Public Practice raised concerns with the employer (MC) due to its deviation from standard recruitment practices. To address this, existing relationships between departments were leveraged to negotiate the process. It was acknowledged, based on evidence, that the required skills were unlikely to be found through open recruitment. YGT agreed to cover the costs of the process with Public Practice. Which is where I join the story. I had spent eight years as a researcher in an architectural practice, primarily working on design and access statements and site analysis, prior to my doctorate in behavioural science. My graduate, and ongoing, research focuses on understanding the social and biological pathways through which inequalities are amplified and embedded in the built environment, and I’d applied to join the Public Practice Associate programme hopeful that I would find a post at the intersection of spatial planning and public health. I started in post in the autumn of 2023. The great thing about the Public Practice programme has been the help, through their year- long Learning & Development scheme, with the transition from my roles in private practice and academia, to my new post in the public sector.

Reflecting on progress to date

Our boroughs (MC and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council [RCBC]) are currently at different stages of the Local Plan cycle. In the emerging Local Plan for MC, I contributed to the Health and Wellbeing Policy and successfully secured an agreement to require Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) for all residential developments that exceed 100 dwellings, and devised an additional HIA screening process, based on health and open space deprivation on a ward-by-ward basis, to be conducted for all major development across the town. I also completed a Health in All Policies (HiAP) assessment of the emerging plan (Regulation 18). Productive discussions with colleagues in RCBC have centred on the potential for a similar approach in the future review of the Local Plan.

Furthermore, I’ve also facilitated, with colleagues across public health and spatial planning, as well as other stakeholders, the creation of MC’s first HIA toolkit, which has physical activity at its heart, taking as our primary model the well-respected HIA materials created by John Wilcox and colleagues at Wakefield City Council. Public Health South Tees recently completed their Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNA), to which I also contributed. I have also ensured that the JSNA is integrated into MC’s emerging Local Plan’s Health & Wellbeing Policy, providing developers with clear baseline information about our communities and our priority goals for health and well-being across the borough.

Additionally, I was also invited by the MC planning department to co-design and facilitate a Planning for Health workshop for all planning colleagues, leveraging resources from Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID, formerly Public Health England) and the sector’s best practice (colleagues in RCBC have expressed interest in hosting similar workshops in the future, too). Further afield, I’ve joined a cadre of practitioners holding similar roles – which usually have the term Healthy Places somewhere in their title – across local authorities in England (presently numbering approximately 30), led by OHID’s Michael Chang, to share insight, identify training needs, and advocate for the wider adoption of such posts across the country.

Reflecting on my first year in post, I’ve relished the opportunity this embedded role has afforded me to explore with colleagues in planning, transport planning and public health, the insights from my own discipline of social biology, and formulate policy, create interventions, codesign training, that are genuinely transdisciplinary in nature, towards our common goal of a healthier, more physically active, South Tees.

Next steps

The foundational changes we’re beginning to implement in South Tees represent a significant shift in how we integrate public health, planning, and transport policies to promote physical activity and wellbeing. However, we face significant challenges ahead. We’ll need to secure sustained funding beyond the post’s initial two-year period, maintain momentum across different planning cycles between our boroughs, and ensure consistent implementation of our new policies. Looking to the future, our next steps of sharing best practices through Sport England’s expansion process and deepening collaboration with the Tees Valley Combined Authority are crucial for scaling our innovations.