Meadhbh Maguire will be supporting the healthy life team’s work in Scotland to improve food environments and help support healthy weight in communities.

Meadhbh is a Senior Planner within the Planning Policy Team at Aberdeenshire Council.

What are you working on at the moment at Nesta?

Meadhbh says: “I will be examining how Scotland’s national spatial strategy, National Planning Framework 4, can support positive changes to food environments in conjunction with Local Development Plans produced by Scottish Local Authorities. This includes how planning policy can support positive proposals to food environments through community food growing or allotments, but additionally establishing whether planning policy can effectively refuse developments that incrementally undermine the food environment and by extension, the health and wellbeing of communities.”

“I’ll also be working to bring planning and public health professionals together to investigate how to increase the role of planning in improving public health and public health’s engagement with the planning system in Scotland, replicating some of the type of work already implemented in England and Wales but utilising the Scottish planning system.”

What excites you the most about your residency project?

Meadhbh says: “This is an exciting time for improving food environments as there is a growing awareness that our health outcomes are influenced by our built environment and the nature of food we can access within this. Our National Planning Framework 4 refers to healthy communities and healthy food opportunities. The challenge is in delivering these on the ground. Bringing together our valued stakeholders to gain their insights and consensus as to how we practically implement this within planning decisions in Scotland is an exciting project to be involved in. It can enable us to tangibly affect the built environment.”