Smoke-free Croydon Charter
Making Croydon a smoke-free borough
Smoking is the number one cause of preventable deaths in Croydon and across the United Kingdom. Most smokers begin to smoke before they become adults, and many begin before their 13th birthdays.
The future health of our children depends on ensuring that they do not become smokers.
Non-smokers, and children in particular, are vulnerable to harm from secondhand smoke.
Progress to end health inequalities and increase the life expectancy of poorer and more vulnerable people in our community depends on action to cut the number of smokers and reduce the harm that smoking causes to them and to others.
We are determined as elected representatives of local people to:
- reduce smoking prevalence in Croydon
- educate and inform local people about the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke
- encourage and support smokers who want to give up, and promote local 'stop smoking' services
- protect non-smokers from the damaging effects of secondhand smoke
- enforce the law on advertising, tobacco smuggling, and the sale of tobacco products to minors
We commit to becoming a smoke-free borough
We use our existing powers to protect our community from the harm caused by smoking, and we call on the Government to give councils the necessary further powers to make this protection fully effective.
We work closely with our partners in the health service and all those involved in local health and regeneration partnerships to set clear targets for reducing smoking and to protect public health, and we will agree a local smoking reduction strategy and action plan to ensure that these targets are achieved.
We work with Customs and Excise and police to tackle counterfeiting and smuggling. We will conduct research, monitor and publish results so that local people can see the progress we are making.
Where will we start?
We will start by taking action in buildings and services directly owned and run by the council:
- No school or council workplace should permit smoking on the premises
- All council employees should have access to professional advice and support services for smokers who wish to quit
We will then take action in buildings and services where we have direct influence including through funding and participation in their management.
- All workplaces or enclosed public spaces in receipt of council funding should become smoke-free
We will do all in our power to protect our own workforce from the dangers of secondhand smoke.
- Employees whose work is mainly outside our premises
- Employees who work mainly in our offices and facilities
We will encourage, and where possible and desirable, require other employers in our area to ensure that their workplaces are smoke free.
We will ensure that action on smoking is a core part of the work of:
- environmental health officers
- trading standards officers
- officers responsible for planning and licensing
- officers who are responsible for the work of local health and regeneration
- partnerships, and for work on social inclusion
- other relevant council staff
How will we monitor our progress?
We will review at least once a year all relevant council policies and programmes to ensure that they include effective action to reduce smoking prevalence, and where necessary we will make changes to ensure that our targets are achieved.
We will ensure that bids for Government and European funding, and the uses to which such funds are put, reflect public health priorities and in particular our determination to reduce smoking prevalence.
We believe that protecting and improving the health and safety of local people is a top priority for the council. That duty cannot be discharged without determined action to protect the public from the damage caused by smoking. We cannot tolerate the terrible toll of death, illness and misery that smoking causes to the people we represent. We promise to do all we can to bring it to an end.
Agreed by the cabinet of Croydon Council on 6th June 2005.
