Modulating the person–environment relationship through local government intervention in England

• Clusters and relates three distinct human geographies of England.
• Identifies the relationship between quality of life and socio-environmental status.
• Explores the impact of local government modulation on public-based quality of life.
• Identifies important national and local policy implications.

Understanding the impact of local authority intervention on the person–environment relationship is critical for a policy objective that aims to enhance citizen well-being. Although private wealth may protect individuals and families from the harsher realities of contemporary living public interventions are designed to improve the quality of life for all. In this paper, we use formal, publicly-available Audit Commission data collected from 352 authorities across England to find out how local government has been able to modulate the quality of life conditions of its neighbourhoods. The study reveals that behind the lower quality of life enjoyed by citizens in some inner London boroughs, metropolitan districts and northern unitary authorities there could be a failure of local government to deliver adequate educational outcomes since a strong association between both phenomena exists. No similar local government impact is identified amongst districts surrounding London or districts in rural areas. Instead, the observation that economic well-being and health also characterise the outcome deficiencies amongst clusters of commensurate socio-environmental status points to the need for national-level interventions, beyond the remit of local government. The same conclusion cannot be so easily drawn for areas of “better than expected” quality of life whose superior outcomes seem to stem more from such profiling variables as location, population density and rural character.