Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
local strategic partnerships have been established to improve the quality of life and
health of residents. The board of these organizations include representatives from
the public sector, including the NHS, local government and police, and the private
sector, composed of people from citizen groups and various businesses. Although
they have no powers to create actions, they are influential in ensuring that health
considerations are given a priority in the various plans and actions of the partner
organizations. They also encourage the establishment of thematic groups to focus
on specific health improvements, including encouraging local residents to identify
and solve health related problems. In addition to these partnerships, a 'targeted site'
approach has identified areas of extreme deprivation and health problems as places
for special programmes to improve the local conditions. The
Well London Alliance
programme created 14 projects in 20 of the most deprived parts of the city in 2007,
dealing with quite small areas of 1500-2000 people (WLA
2007
; Otgaar et al.
2011
).
These are not policies of planning or housing departments alone, but involve mul-
tiple agencies—including the YMCA, two charities, a technology transfer agency,
the Arts Council, a local university and major hospital trust—programmes which
are funded by grants from the National Lottery. The various agencies contribute
their own expertise to the projects. However, in an attempt to get more local input,
the residents affected were consulted about the projects through site visits, action
workshops and discussions in the community cafes that were established. Surveys
revealed a lack of co-ordination among the existing social services and revealed that
the people in the areas were not simply deprived economically, but lacked hope and
ability to improve their conditions, typical problems that affect the development of
grass roots organizations (Davies and Herbert
1993
, Chap. 6). An important focus
of these targeted Well London programmes has been to emphasize better nutrition,
create exercise opportunities, and develop a series of other programmes to improve
the negative various social determinants of health problems, through a series of so-
called 'heart of the community' projects. These are designed to reduce loneliness
and improve community relationships, such as involving the youth in the design
of projects, creating access to healthy facilities in the area, from encouraging new
shops, to finding safe walking routes. They also focus on reducing crime, develop-
ing personal improvement programmes to improve the mental well-being of people
in the area and try to create a sense of ownership over local facilities and projects.
By having control group areas where no intervention has occurred, the effectiveness
of the various initiatives were measured in the 5 year project period from 2007 in
order to create evidence-based policy evaluation, in the hope that the programmes
that work can be copied successfully in other areas. However, despite these targeted
initiatives there is a pressing need for more social housing in London. The influx
of capital from overseas rich people, combined with the strength of the financial
services sector in particular, means that land and house prices continue to rise, with
the result that essential workers, such as nurses, social workers, police and teachers,
are priced out of the market.
