Creating health in the Afan Valley

During a four-month internship at Urban Habitats, I have gained a greater understanding of public health approaches to community wellbeing and the significant role of the built and natural environment in creating health.  In this blog I reflect on these approaches in relation to my own community in the Afan Valley which is not an urban or city location but rather a series of dispersed communities in the South Wales Valleys.  Do these approaches hold for these communities and what can be learned from these communities about creating health and wellbeing?

Place plans – how good is my place?

Increasingly it is recognised across that the creation of our places where people live, work, play, and learn, needs to involve the people who are actually living, working, playing, or learning there.