1. We are WSP in the UK
  2. What We Do
  3. Projects
  4. Making health a priority for UK communities

Making health a priority for UK communities

Health and wellbeing is at the heart of our work with UK local authorities, replacing the decades-old obsession with single-occupancy car movement. Our street design guidance is helping councils create compact, sociable neighborhoods, while our active transportation advice seeks to take advantage of the cycling and walking boom since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The hope is that many of the lessons learnt will remain long after the pandemic subsides, and that we can respond positively to seismic shifts in how we use the spaces around us. This will enable us to promote healthier lifestyles and cater for diverse communities, while tackling carbon impacts. 

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many UK local authorities were already thinking about how streets and roads – which make up about three-quarters of public space – could be redesigned to better serve community needs. In 2020, as people started walking and cycling en masse, this became a higher priority, and councils are now seeking to put in place infrastructure to allow us to maintain healthy habits, and help cities meet environmental, social, and economic priorities.  

Redesigning our streets and places 

WSP has been working on a range of projects that seek to facilitate this. For example, we were commissioned by the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation to update the government’s Manual for Streets - guidance for how to design, build, adapt and maintain new and existing streets. When completed, it will present the latest thinking, helping UK councils create happier, healthier, and more productive communities through urban planning. 

In Hertfordshire, we’re proposing ways for the county to promote active travel, tackle climate change, improve safety, and cater for growth. Harlow and Gilston Garden Town, a new 16,000 home community, will include a fast, frequent, high-quality public transport service and essential facilities within walking distance for more residents – a rarity outside big cities. 

The pandemic has accelerated change that was already coming, in terms of a focus on active travel, healthier places and tackling carbon impacts. Our projects are trying to capitalize on what people are doing now and address the future of our communities, because they're going to have to become different
Adrian Hames Service Line Director, Transport Planning, WSP in the UK
making-healthy-a-priority

Promoting active travel

Our updated version of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) cycling infrastructure design guidance LTN1/20 was published in July 2020. Using the thinking behind this in our work for Cambridgeshire County Council, we helped create some of the 12 new cycle routes into the center of Cambridge to help meet city targets for cycling accounting for 40% of travel by 2023. 

Similarly, our Active Modes Appraisal Toolkit, for the DfT, presents the latest innovation in targeting effective urban design solutions that get people moving. Since 2020 we’ve helped local authorities in Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and Cambridgeshire secure more than £25m from the government’s COVID-era Emergency Active Travel Fund scheme, enabling them to implement sustainable change. 

Across all our projects, the central theme has been people and communities – rather than car movement. We want to help governments create places that promote health and activity, that are safe, inclusive, and equitable, and can adapt to change. To achieve this, we engage with communities, bringing them along on the journey. As more people work remotely and shop online, we believe our streets will need to be not only functional, but attractive, interesting, and sustainable – where businesses succeed, people interact, and nature thrives.  

Other challenges that we have overcome