Can evidence-based healthy housing interventions be put into practice in the UK's private housing sector?

The UK’s public health agenda has encouraged enhanced housing and health interventions. The private housing sector (privately rented and owner occupied) is the favoured and majority UK tenure, but is it seen as a primarily health promoting environment, or a commercial asset? There has been a growing interest in integrating health and housing policy in recent years. However, housing and public health fall under separate government departments and funding regimes. Partnership working has sought to overcome silo working and encourage evidence-based practice, yet is particularly challenging for interventions in the private housing sector, with an increased emphasis on ‘personal responsibility’ for conditions. Strategic public health frameworks are in place, but barriers remain and there is pressure for organisations to revert to core activities. An accessible, continually updated evidence base specific to private sector housing is recommended, to help estimate health gain arising from interventions to prioritise activities and address inequalities.

Putting down routes: an examination of local government cultural policy shaping the development of heritage trails

This paper explores the significance of trails within local government cultural strategies by presenting the results of an audit of 1000 trails, content analysis of local cultural strategies and a series of interviews with local government cultural officers. It highlights the growing sophistication of trails as flexible and multi-faceted products promising an array of social, environmental, cultural and economic benefits. However, key issues emerge as challenges for local government cultural officers. These include the need for a realistic assessment of the relative importance of competing rationales, the design of methodologies to enable evidence-based policy making and more effective engagement with commercial organisations.