Cornwall Council and the University of Exeter: maximising the human health and wellbeing value of nature in a local government contex
Cornwall Council and the University of Exeter were partners in this placement, which built on other ESRC and NERC-funded work in this area. Dr Dan Bloomfield from the University of Exeter worked primarily with the Strategy Team in Cornwall Council.
The opportunity was to engage, via the Council, a wider local authority community. Local authorities potentially have a considerable role to play in the rolling out of nature prescription activities, which are a very targeted way of realising the health and wellbeing value of nature. Commissionable services for patients and service users can be delivered using Council assets such as parks and other green spaces. This placement aimed to:
- ensure that the benefits to human health and wellbeing of nature-based activity are much more widely known within Cornwall Council;
- identify and elucidate how such activity can support a range of Council policies and strategies;
- enumerate how nature-based activity for health can best employ Council assets;
- promulgate, though a range of outputs, our understanding of how local government in general can most effectively engage with, and benefit from, work in this area.
Placement information:
End of placement video (and shown below)
Starting placement presentation introducing placement ideas