Who can prepare a health impact assessment

No qualification is prescribed for health impact assessment in planning, and no register of authors exists. Who can write a health impact assessment is therefore a practical question: can the author read the policy that triggered the requirement, obtain and interpret local public health evidence, and write recommendations that a planning condition or a section 106 obligation could actually secure. Most of the assessments that get sent back fail on the third of those.

There is no national statutory requirement either. The trigger is a local plan policy, which means the first thing an author has to do is read that policy and the authority's own guidance on how it expects the assessment to be done.

When a local plan policy triggers an assessment

Requirements vary widely, and the pattern across England is a threshold in the plan tied to scheme size or type. Thresholds commonly attach to residential schemes above a stated number of units, to major development of a stated floorspace, to hot food takeaways near schools, and to proposals for health or care facilities. In London the plan sets its own expectation for larger schemes and boroughs add their own.

Find three documents before you start:

1. The development plan policy itself, with its exact threshold and wording.
2. Any supplementary planning document or local guidance note on how to carry out the assessment, including a required template or checklist.
3. The authority's validation list, which will say whether the assessment is a validation requirement or something expected at determination.

Where the policy sets a template, use it. Authorities that have published a matrix and receive a free-form report send it back, and the resubmission costs more than reading the template would have.

Rapid, intermediate and full scopes

The three scopes are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one wastes money or fails the policy.

A rapid assessment is a desk exercise, usually a structured matrix working through health determinants with a short commentary and a set of recommendations. It suits minor and smaller major schemes and typically runs to 20 or 30 pages.

An intermediate assessment adds quantitative baseline analysis, some engagement with the local public health team, and a fuller treatment of the determinants that the scheme actually affects. It suits larger residential schemes and mixed use regeneration.

A full assessment adds primary engagement with affected communities, quantified health outcome modelling where that is possible, and a monitoring framework. It is proportionate to strategic sites, large urban extensions and schemes with contested health effects such as a major road or an energy facility.

Scope proportionately and say in the report why you chose the scope you did. An assessment that applies a full methodology to 60 dwellings reads as padding, and one that applies a rapid matrix to 2,000 homes reads as avoidance.

Public health evidence an author must handle

This is the competence that separates authors. The evidence sits in several places and none of it arrives pre-digested.

An author who cannot locate a joint strategic needs assessment or does not know what a lower layer super output area is will produce a generic document. The assessment has to say something about this place, and that means working with the actual figures rather than describing the general importance of health.

And the scheme's own technical reports matter as much. A health assessment that asserts good air quality while the Air Quality Assessment for the same scheme reports an exceedance at the site frontage will be read as unreliable, and the contradiction is easy for an officer to find.

Working with the director of public health

The local authority's director of public health, or a member of their team, is normally consulted on schemes where the policy applies. They are the reader who matters, and they read differently from a planning officer.

What they look for is whether the assessment engages with their own priorities, whether the baseline is local, whether the recommendations are specific enough to be implemented, and whether anything has been claimed as a health benefit without support. What irritates them is a report that lists the benefits of walking.

Early contact is worth the effort. A short scoping conversation, before the assessment is written, about which determinants matter in that area and what evidence the team expects, converts a consultation objection into a consultation comment.

Mitigation a condition or obligation can secure

Recommendations that cannot be secured are the commonest weakness. Each one should be written so that it maps onto a mechanism.

Design and layout recommendations go into the drawings and are secured by the approved plans condition. Operational matters such as a travel plan, a construction management plan or a management regime for an open space are secured by condition. Financial contributions towards primary care capacity, open space, play provision or active travel infrastructure are secured by a section 106 obligation, and they have to meet the statutory tests of necessity, direct relationship and reasonable relationship to scale. Monitoring commitments go into the obligation as well.

Recommendations that cannot be secured by any of those, such as encouraging future residents to cook from scratch, should be dropped. They make the rest of the document look weaker than it is.

Where the assessment overlaps other documents

The overlap is extensive, and the way to handle it is cross-reference rather than repetition. Air quality, noise, daylight, open space, play space and transport all produce findings the health assessment interprets rather than recreates. Equality and inclusion sit alongside, and the relationship with an Equalities Impact Assessment is worth stating explicitly because the two documents consider overlapping groups for different statutory reasons. Social and community infrastructure capacity belongs in a Social Infrastructure Assessment and should be referenced rather than duplicated.

Councils usually expect a suitably qualified author for this work, and professional review is strongly advised. A Health Impact Assessment drafted with AI assistance can carry the structure, the policy framework and the determinant checklist, but the local baseline, the professional judgement and the recommendations need an author who will stand behind them.

Checking an assessment against the policy asked about

Five checks before submission. Does the report answer the specific policy, by number, that triggered it. Is the baseline local, with sources and dates. Does every recommendation name a securing mechanism. Do the findings agree with the technical reports for the same scheme. Has the public health team seen a draft.

If an independent check is wanted, the question of when a peer review earns its fee is dealt with in the guide to when an independent peer review is worth paying for.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Local plan thresholds, templates and public health datasets change, so confirm the requirement with your local planning authority before commissioning the work.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.