North Yorkshire Council has been allocated £195,000 government funding to stop smoking.

This funding aims to expand its existing offer to residents and provide more support to help people quite over the next five years: “Stopping the Start: our new place to create a smoke free generation’

These services, such as free nicotine replacement therapy, will be delivered by the Health Trainer Team. Additional funding will expand this offer from four weeks to 10 weeks.

“Our Health Trainers already do an amazing job to support people across York to make positive changes such as stopping smoking. It’s really welcome news that this additional funding with enable them to help more residents and for longer”, Cllr Jo Coles, Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care commented.

Recent figures released by the Action on Smoking and Health showed that smoking costs York £109 million a year. This is due to the impact smoking has on local productivity, healthcare, social care and smoking related fires.

A council meeting on the 9th of May approved of the use of the Local Stop Smoking Services and Support Grant from 2024-2025 and in future years, with the sole reason to build a smokefree generation in York.