Liverpool City Council will invest almost £2 million to make the city ‘smoke free’ by 2030, with a focus on prevention.
Almost one in five (17%) of those living in Liverpool are smokers, spending almost £2,500 a year on the habit, according to the council.
The plan aims to reduce the proportion of the city’s population that smokes to 5% by 2030.
It will be put to the cabinet next week, backed by more than £1 million from the council’s public health grant and around £830,000 in local stop smoking services and support funding.
Reported by the BBC, a cabinet report said: ‘The council wants Liverpool to become a smoke free city allowing all its communities to live longer, healthier and wealthier lives in a city where they can play and work without exposure to the harms of tobacco smoke.’
The strategy – put forward after an independent review in 2022 – focuses on prevention. It also looks to create more smoke-free environments to ‘denormalise’ smoking.
Smoking costs
The cost of smoking to England’s economy has increased by 25%, according to new figures published by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).
This comes as MPs recently voted in favour of legislation that will effectively ban smoking for those born after 2008.
ASH released data from Landmark Economics that estimates the cost of smoking to the economy. The figures suggest that the cost has risen from £17 billion to 21.8 billion, an increase of one quarter on previous figures. This includes:
- £1.9 billion to the NHS
- £1.2 billion in social care costs to local authorities
- £18.3 billion in lost productivity.
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