QUALITY OF LIFE - HEALTH & WELLBEING

Health

The World Health Organisation defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Infrastructure has both direct and indirect impacts on physical and mental health, and these impacts can be both positive and negative

Quality of life is a broad concept that lacks a universal definition. Key definitions of quality of life include:

  • NHS Wales: Quality of life contains several core components – physical wellbeing, functional wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, social wellbeing, expectation and perception and unmet needs.

  • United Nations: Quality of life is the ‘notion of human welfare (wellbeing) measured by social indicators rather than by quantitative measures of income and production.’

  • Institute for Work and Health:“Quality of life embodies overall wellbeing and happiness, including access to school, work opportunities, absence of military conflict or threats, as well as good physical and emotional health. It’s relative, subjective and has intangible components, such as spiritual beliefs and a sense of belonging”

  •  World Health Organisation: An individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns”.

Quality of Life In the UK Varies Between Places

It is reasonable to expect different quality of life experiences – positive and negative – in different types of places. This is partly because fundamentally different types of places, such as urban and rural areas, offer different things to households and businesses and these have implications for the shape of the built environment, including infrastructure. This is due to the trade-offs in the costs and benefits of density (e.g. there are more jobs in urban areas but they are more congested and polluted) and space (e.g. rural areas have better access to nature but are more isolated)

The key source of information below is from the National Commission for Infrastructure and Office for National Statistics. Quality of Life & Wellbeing initially explored in general terms then contextually re development/proposed development and their impacts.

About the National Infrastructure Commission

The Commission is an Executive Agency of HM Treasury, providing government with impartial, expert advice on major long term infrastructure challenges.

The Commission advises government on all sectors of economic infrastructure, defined as: energy, transport, water and wastewater (drainage and sewerage), waste, flood risk management and digital communications. It also considers interactions between its infrastructure recommendations and housing supply. The Commission’s role does not cover housing (as a distinct area), social infrastructure, land use or agriculture.

Although these core functions do not directly relate to quarrying, the definitions, principles, and considerations regarding Quality of Life, Health, and Wellbeing offer valuable references. Specific legislation and planning framework guidelines will be highlighted on the "How to Object" page once it is published. In the meantime, please refer to the main Health & Wellbeing page for additional links and information.

The Commission defines quality of life as an objective and subjective assessment of an individual’s overall wellbeing

(in the context of infrastructure/development)

Many of the definitions above refer to wellbeing, which interacts with quality of life.

The Commission assess the impact of infrastructure on quality of life across six domains, considering both direct users and third parties. This domain-based approach better captures cumulative effects than a sector-by-sector approach.

Key organisations like WHO and OECD use similar domains across frameworks, with common areas like health, relationships, and environment. The Commission adapts the Office for National Statistics’ framework to assess the impact of infrastructure, as outlined in Table 2 below.

The Commission’s domains, derived from the Office for National Statistics’ wellbeing dashboard, focus on infrastructure impacts, excluding issues outside the Commission’s remit.

As part of the Commission’s domains, resilience is one factor that affects all infrastructure sectors and will be considered under the most relevant domains. Based on the Commission’s framework for measuring the quality of infrastructure set out in the first Assessment, resilience is made up of two factors:

  • Everyday resilience: This refers to short term resilience events such as delays and cancellations on public transport. This will be covered under the ‘comfort and convenience’ theme, as these issues usually pose a temporary risk to a user’s experience and therefore quality of life.

  • Resilience to large shocks: Serious resilience events with substantial and potentially long-term impacts to quality of life. These issues will be covered under the ‘health’ theme as these shocks (e.g. flood events and droughts) have severe consequences to physical and mental health

The Commission’s Quality of Life Domains

Health

The World Health Organisation defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Infrastructure has both direct and indirect impacts on physical and mental health, and these impacts can be both positive and negative

Modern Infrastructure/Development can still have a range of impacts on mental and physical health through, for example:

  • Air pollution: Extended exposure to air pollution can result in adverse effects on physical health, including cardiovascular disease and asthma. However, infrastructure changes can help to reduce these impacts. For example, electric vehicles and heat pumps do not emit nitrous oxides, which is a toxic by product of fossil fuel burning.

  • Noise pollution: Noise pollution is a risk factor for many cardiovascular diseases.Noise pollution from electric vehicles is significantly lower than their diesel and petrol counterparts.

  • Protection against natural hazards: Floods are a risk to life, making flood defences essential for protecting communities against the physical health risks threatened by these events. Flooding is also highly disruptive for households and as a result can lead to significant mental health impacts.  Flood infrastructure, therefore, is essential for minimising exposure to health related hazards. Droughts are also seen to negatively affect people’s mental health, particularly for those with lifestyles that are easily disrupted by a resilience event such as this.  Increasing water supply capacity and reducing demand can help to alleviate some of these health effects and improve drought resilience.

     

Local and natural surroundings

The natural environment and ecosystem services have benefits for quality of life. Infrastructure has the potential to facilitate and enhance these benefits through better design. However, as all infrastructure impacts the environment in some capacity, there are negative as well as positive impacts.

  • Recreational benefits: Better access to green and blue spaces is associated with improved mental health and wellbeing.  Transport is central to enhancing the connectivity to these spaces.

  • Protecting natural capital assets: For example, carefully designed roads and bridges can double as wildlife crossings for species, which in turn supports local biodiversity.

Damage to ecosystems and biodiversity loss: Poor quality infrastructure can have detrimental effects on the natural environment. Without proper design and investment considerations, infrastructure has the potential to cause significant damage to ecosystems and contribute to biodiversity loss. In addition, infrastructure use is also a major contributor to the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.  However, well designed infrastructure can help to limit major environmental impacts and address climate change concerns. The Commission’s previous work indicates that the decline in natural capital over several decades is in part due to the impact of the built environment, including infrastructure

DESIGN PRINCIPLES RELATING TO INFRASTRUCTURE

The Commission’s design principles, endorsed by government in the National Infrastructure Strategy, identified four principles to guide the planning and delivery of major infrastructure projects: climate, people, places and value. The ‘people’ and ‘places’ principles are the most relevant to quality of life, as they both consider the importance of embedding the requirements of local communities while protecting the nearby environment through design