UK county becomes first place in country to ban outdoor smoking by 2025

The UK’s first ever outdoor smoking ban is set to be implemented as councils clamp down on cigarette use across the country.

Oxfordshire will become the first county in the country to enforce the controversial ban, with many others set to follow in an attempt to be ‘cigarette-free’ by 2025, just four years from now.

Oxfordshire council has also put in place their own goals to reduce smoking, including bringing the percentage of teenagers who smoke down to 3% and decreasing smoking among manual workers to 10%.

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They also aim to reduce the amount of smokers with mental illness to under 20% and pregnant smokers to below 4%, according to Oxfordshire Live. The report claims that the government plans to award areas with the smoke free title once 5% or less of the population smoke.

Though the council has stressed that this is not a ban as such, but rather an attempt to create an environment where people are encouraged to not smoke.

Dr. Adam Briggs, the health official leading the plans, said in a report that smoking was the number one factor that lead to preventable deaths in Oxford and had cost a huge £120 million each year.

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The NHS seconded this, saying that second-hand smoking alone can lead to a whole array of illnesses and diseases, such as lung-cancer. According to their figures, living with someone who smokes increases a non-smokers chance of having lung cancer by 25% alone.

England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty has also warned of the consequences of smoking, saying the habit has killed more people than Covid has since the beginning of the pandemic, with an estimate that 900,000 people a year die as a result of smoking.

Back in June, it was reported that Manchester City Council is one of the five councils starting to slowly implement measures to reduce smoking in public spaces and outdoor hospitality venues.