Social return on investment analysis of an urban greenway

ABSTRACT

Evidence supports the multi-functional nature of urban green space, and so economic evaluations should have a broad lens in order to capture their full impact. Given the evidence for a range of health, wellbeing, social and environmental benefits of such interventions, we modelled the potential social return on investment of a new urban greenway intervention in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Areas that the greenway was purported to impact upon included: land and property values; flood alleviation; tourism; labour employment and productivity; quality of place; climate change; and, health. The most recent and applicable evidence pre-development of the greenway for each area was summarised to obtain an ‘effect estimate’; this was then applied to available data for the greenway area and the impact estimated and monetised using various methods. To calculate the Benefit Cost Ratio all seven monetary benefits were summed, for both a worst case and best case scenario, and divided by the total investment cost. The Benefit Cost Ratio ranged from 2.88 to 5.81 (i.e. for every £1.00 invested in the greenway, there would be £2.00–6.00 returned). This is one of the first studies to conduct a social return on investment of a new urban greenway estimating the potential benefits.

KEYWORDS:

• Social return on investment
• economic evaluation
• urban green space
• natural experiment

This article is related to:

Research for city practice

Acknowledgements

This study is published on behalf of the PARC Study team who include (as well as those listed; in alphabetical order): Dr Deepti Adlakha (QUB); Dr Chris Cardwell (QUB); Prof Margaret Cupples (QUB); Prof Michael Donnelly (QUB); Mr Mick Donnelly (ARUP); Prof Geraint Ellis (QUB); Dr Aisling Gough (QUB); Prof George Hutchinson (QUB); Dr Therese Kearney (QUB); Prof Alberto Longo (QUB); Prof Lindsay Prior (QUB); Dr Helen McAneney (QUB); Mr Michael Stevenson (QUB).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest

Supplementary materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

The PARC Study was supported by a grant from the National Prevention Research Initiative (G0802045/1). The Funding Partners are (in alphabetical order): Alzheimer’s Research Trust; Alzheimer’s Society; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research UK; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorate; Department of Health; Diabetes UK; Economic and Social Research Council; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Health and Social Care Research and Development Division of the Public Health Agency (HSC R&D Division); Medical Research Council; The Stroke Association; Welsh Assembly Government and World Cancer Research Fund. We also wish to acknowledge funding from the UKCRC Centre of Excellence for Public Health Northern Ireland. MATD was funded by a PhD studentship from the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland. The authors would like to acknowledge the partners and stakeholders involved in the PARC Study including the Eastside Partnership; Belfast City Council; Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety; Department for Communities; Department of the Environment; Department for Infrastructure; Belfast Health and Social Care trust; East Belfast Community Development Agency; Sport Northern Ireland; Belfast Healthy Cities; Sustrans; Public Health Agency; Ordnance Survey NI and local residents of the Connswater Community Greenway population.

Notes on contributors

Ruth F. Hunter

Ruth F. Hunter is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Public Health at the Centre for Public Health at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research has focused on the built environment, urban health and non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention. She has particular expertise in urban green space interventions, natural experiment evaluations, and complexity science methods including systems thinking, agent-based modelling, and social and stakeholder network analysis.

Mary A.T. Dallat

Mary A.T. Dallat is a Public Health Speciality Registrar currently based at the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland. At the start of her public health training she undertook a PhD which was primarily focused on applying traditional techniques of health economic analysis to evaluate public health interventions, particularly physical activity interventions.

Mark A. Tully

Mark A. Tully a Professor of Public Health and Director of the Institute of Mental Health Sciences at Ulster University. He is also the Director of the Northern Ireland Public Health Research Network. His research focuses on addressing population levels of physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour, which are major causes of poor physical and mental wellbeing. His research includes interventions targeting older adults and socio-economically disadvantaged communities, using a wide range of methodological approaches.

Leonie Heron

Leonie Heron is a PhD student at the Centre for Public Health, Queen's University Belfast. Her PhD focuses on the health economics of physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour, including the economic evaluation of interventions. Her background is in human biology (BSc) and epidemiology (MSc) and she is the communications lead on the ISPAH Early Career Network committee.

Ciaran O’Neill

Ciaran O’Neill is Professor of Health Economics at Queen’s University Belfast and Adjunct Professor of Health Economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His research interests include the analysis of health care disparities, policy and technology evaluation, and the measurement and analysis of health preferences. He is a teacher and researcher with over 30 years experience in the field of health and has taught and supervised students at all levels of their university education.

Frank Kee

Frank Kee is a Professor of Public Health Medicine and clinical epidemiologist who directs the Centre for Public Health at Queen’s University Belfast. He has also worked with the NHS public health service as a consultant for 30 years and has served on numerous UKRI and NIHR public health scientific advisory panels.