Salisbury’s high street “third healthiest in UK”

Salisbury has the third healthiest high street in the UK, according to a new report from The Royal Society for Public Health.

The RSPH looked at the kinds of businesses in the centre of 70 cities to determine which were the most, and least, detrimental to the public’s health.

Tanning shops, fast food takeaways, bookmakers and payday lenders all attracted a negative score, while pharmacies, leisure centres and health clubs, libraries and museums and art galleries attracted a positive one.

Surprisingly, pubs and bars attracted a positive score, because of the effect they have on ‘promoting social interaction’.

The RSPH is now calling on the next Government, to introduce a range of measures to make high streets more health promoting, including:

• Local authorities to be given greater planning powers to prevent the proliferation of betting shops, payday lenders and fast food outlets;
• Public health criteria to be a condition of licensing for all types of business;
• Mandatory food hygiene ratings linked to calorie and nutrition labelling for fast food outlets;
• A limit of five percent of each type of business on a high street in order to avoid over-saturation and provide affordable choice;
• Legislation to enable local councils to set their own differential business rates to encourage healthier outlets and discourage those that are detrimental to health.

RSPH chief executive Shirley Cramer said: “While our ranking of towns and cities is by no means a reflection on whether these areas are generally healthy or unhealthy, our research does find higher concentrations of unhealthy businesses exist in places which already experience high levels of deprivation and premature mortality.

“We recognise that businesses investing in High Streets are important for local economies; but this shouldn’t be at any price. The Five Year Forward View calls for us to move “further and faster” to improve the public’s health. This could be achieved by granting Local Authorities enhanced powers to create a rich mix of health promoting businesses on our high streets and encouraging businesses to promote healthy choices.”

Salisbury was ranked behind Shrewsbury and Ayr in the league table of towns with the healthiest high streets. Topping the chart of towns with the unhealthiest retail areas were Preston, Middlesborough, and Coventry.

See the full report at www.rsph.org.uk