Case Study: Birmingham Public Health achieves reduced fast-food outlets near schools with Ordnance Survey's OS Street View

Birmingham Public Health - Customer Case Study

Birmingham Public Health faced a severe childhood obesity problem — almost a quarter of Year Six children are officially obese and analysis showed takeaways clustered near schools. To tackle this, the team worked with Ordnance Survey using OS Street View (via the Public Sector Mapping Agreement) to plot schools, youth facilities and leisure centres and expose fast-food outlets within a 400m perimeter of many schools.

Using Ordnance Survey’s OS Street View the team produced shareable, interactive maps that revealed takeaways within 400m of 71% of primary and secondary schools and helped headteachers and planners oppose new outlets. Ordnance Survey’s mapping contributed to a slowdown in the spread of unhealthy outlets, a planning policy limiting new fast-food units (no more than 10% of units in any shopping area), and nearly half of new takeaway applications being refused.

Birmingham Public Health

Iris Fermin

Head of Public Health Information and Intelligence