Stubbing out Smoking in Milton Keynes

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 26th Jul 2005

Milton Keynes has taken another step towards becoming a smoke-free zone.

The Council's Liberal Democrat cabinet has agreed to continue working closely with other partners in the city, especially the Primary Care Trust (PCT), to push on towards achieving a smoke-free Milton Keynes by the beginning of 2007 - a year ahead of the Government's deadline. And all Council-owned workplaces will be smoke-free by December 2006.

The cabinet has also agreed to appoint a 'Tobacco Control Officer', working within the Council's Environmental Health team, to help weed out smoking in the workplace and indoor public places. The post will be paid for by the PCT out of Government funding.

"This is not 'big brother' we are talking about here - this is people's health and lives," said Liberal Democrat Council Leader Isobel Wilson. "People are becoming more and more unhappy putting up with other people smoking, and we have known for years about the dangers caused by passive smoking.

"We have secured additional funding from the Government to help Milton Keynes Council and its partners to help those people who really want to quit, and to help reduce the impact on non-smokers. There have already been a number of local successes, for example the PCT has exceeded its target for the number of people helped to quit smoking for four weeks or more."

The cabinet agreed to set up a Smoke-free Advisory Group, and to adopt the Milton Keynes smoke-free vision, which aims to:

• work towards making Milton Keynes smoke-free by 2008

• provide services and opportunities to help people quit smoking

• discourage children and young people from starting smoking (including tackling underage sales)

• work with smokers and tobacco users not yet ready to quit, to prepare them to give up.