The Demise of the High Street
The number of shops in the United Kingdom has been decreasing for at least a century. A study in the 1920s estimated that there were 950,000 shops; 583,000 in 1950 and just over 300,000 shops in the UK by 1997. In July 2019, 10.3% of all shops in the UK were empty, the highest its been since 2015; in what was once the hub of the community.
The BBC reports a number of reasons why Britain’s high street’s are failing; premises are too big, shopping habits are changing and footfall is declining. As retailers seek to adapt to a rise in online spending, more and more premises are becoming vacant.
The future of the high street is transforming, there is a need to adapt to current times and support the mission to develop healthy high streets. Healthy high streets can be considered an asset that promotes and improves the health of local residents and the wider local community.
Less healthy high streets have high levels of air and noise pollution, commutabubble aims to tackle this whilst revitalising the high street for the benefit of the local community. To support the provision of a healthy high street in your area, you can write to your MP here.
Growth of Obesity
According to the Royal Society of Public Health, commuting by non-active means is known to reduce mental wellbeing, negatively impact physical health such as raising blood pressure and also reduce the time available for physical activity.
Greater Sport reports Greater Manchester’s employees spend a minimum of 60% of their waking hours at work. For many people, that means over 50% of their day is spent inactive. With more than half of waking hours spent in the workplace, it’s essential employers understand why high inactivity levels at work can be hugely problematic.
A survey conducted by CV Library reports 81.5% of workers agree that regular exercise helps them to stay focused at work. As staff productivity is one of the main concerns for many employers, it’s clear that encouraging your employees to be more active is a strategy that can pay off. Activities such as cycling and walking offer numerous well-known health benefits with many studies reporting lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and cancers. Active employees are less stressed, more motivated and absent fewer times due to illness.
Currently, an inactivity epidemic presents a major challenge, with growing evidence demonstrating the damaging impact of non-active commutes on our health and wellbeing; commutabubble can support your team to actively commute.
Poor Air Quality
Air pollution can cause both short term and long term effects on health and many people are concerned about pollution in the air that they breathe. Clean Air GM declares air pollution is linked to a range of serious health conditions, including cancer, heart disease, stroke and asthma. It contributes to around 1,200 early deaths in Greater Manchester every year.
Five cities including Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton have been instructed to implement Clean Air Zones (CAZ) to improve air quality in their region. The Government has also named 23 local authorities where it expects pollution levels to reach illegal levels by 2021.
European Environment Agency reports recent figures for the UK (2017) reveal that the transport sector is responsible for 27% of greenhouse gases emissions, the most of any sector. Whilst an overall reduction of nearly 42% in these emissions has been observed since 1990, the transport sector has contributed only a very small proportion of this overall reduction (2%).
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