Pennine Lancashire (Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley, Rossendale and Lancashire County Council) plan to test its planning powers to restrict food retailers that do not offer healthier options and to test a range of levers to incentivise them to improve their offer.
Pennine Lancashire (Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley, Rossendale and Lancashire County Council) plan to test its planning powers to restrict food retailers that do not offer healthier options and to test a range of levers to incentivise them to improve their offer.
Progress
- Planning for Healthy Food Environments Toolkit completed, published & disseminated to key stakeholders
- Continuing to work with OHID colleagues on the development of a national template response to objections from large Fast-Food Chains in relation to local planning policy
- Joint briefing paper on Planning for Active Travel produced in conjunction with Food Active
- Pilot voucher scheme launched in Blackburn with Darwen to test incentivising businesses to promote healthier meal options as part of their food offer
Challenges
- Local Elections early May could impact on member engagement due to capacity and period of purdah
- Different council sign-off procedures means ratification of the Joint Planners Agreement is slow
- Businesses are risk averse as a result of economic impact of Covid-19
Learnings
- Structures & processes vary across districts in relation to sign-off and endorsement of key documents
- Recognised that initially there is some groundwork required to engage businesses (particularly in Pendle) in the benefits of joining the scheme & support for businesses to adapt their offer
- Coordination of activities in schools can be difficult to organise as an external delivery partner. A good degree of facilitation and liaising with key stakeholders in the districts is required.
- Impact & Sustainability workshop are beneficial for number of reasons including continued momentum and stakeholder engagement in the programme delivery
- Working collaboratively with other organisations, like Sustain, has helped reach wider audiences
Next steps
- Dissemination of the planning for healthy food environments toolkit
- Dissemination of the briefing on Planning for Active Travel
- Continuing to support councils in adopting the Healthy Weight Declaration
- Gather insight from pilot voucher scheme and evaluate this to understand consumer demand and impact on businesses
- Planning out a series of interviews and surveys as part of final programme evaluation