Supporting Health Neighbourhood Environments (SHINE) HIT review of 2019-20

Professor Adrian Davis, Dr Suzanne Audrey and Sally Hogg, Directors of the Supporting Healthy Inclusive Neighbourhood Environments Health Integration Team (SHINE HIT), look back on the HIT’s achievements over the past 12 months.

Over the past 12 months SHINE has continued to work on the barriers to walking and active travel. Suzanne organised and spoke at two Watershed public events on walkable neighbourhoods. She also made a statement at Bristol City Council (BCC) Cabinet meeting in support of the draft Bristol Transport Strategy (this strategy includes a section on walking that is a direct result of previous SHINE work, funded by ESRC-IAA, when we organised and supervised a placement in BCC Transport Department).

Suzanne continues to represent SHINE on the Bristol Walk Fest planning group (the largest urban walking festival in the UK), as a member of Bristol’s Sustainable Transport Network and an executive member of Bristol Walking Alliance. She contributes to quarterly meetings with Bristol City Council’s cabinet member for transport and with the City Design team to comment on the public realm elements of new developments in the city.

We re-printed the Bedminster Toilet Map last year and a small-scale evaluation, with the support of Bristol Health Partners, was undertaken to assess distribution through GP surgeries, community centres etc. There are ambitions for replication in other parts of the city.

Adrian Davis has drafted 20 evidence summaries addressing aspects of air quality and the school journey as agreed by BCC’s School Travel Officer. These have been given to the Council and can be found on the Travelwest website and are located alongside a previous 20 summaries on a wider range of school travel topics.

SHINE continues its work around improving air quality which is led by Zoe Banks-Gross, a Leadership Team member, and Knowle West Media Centre Communications Manager, for monitoring and community engagement work at Bannerman Road School.

Marcus Grant continues as Editor-in-Chief of the international journal, Cities & Health, and the Bristol-grown initiative, Playing Out, was featured in the special edition of Cities and Health on ‘child friendly cities’.