Member

The 15-minute walking distance is not just plucked from the air. That target is based on robust scientific evidence. I shall give one example from the UK, from a paper published in 2023 in the top medical journal, the Lancet Planetary Health. Researchers looked at the medical records for the mental health of 2.3 million adults in Wales over a 10-year period and then used satellite imagery to geolocate those individuals and see how far away they were from urban green space. What they found was fascinating and something we should all take note of: the further you live from green space, such as a park, blue space or a community garden, the greater the risk of common mental health disorders. In fact, they got it down to this formula, and this is statistically very strong: every 360 metres further away you are from that green space, the higher the incidence of common mental diseases.