An enforcement officer is being employed in Nottingham to help stamp out sales of illegal and counterfeit tobacco and e-cigarettes. Nottingham City Council will be spending up to £116,355 on the tobacco control enforcement officer over a period of three years, alongside a further £120,000 for a part-time Nottinghamshire Police officer to help execute warrants and target problematic groups or individuals.
It comes as Nottingham is expected to miss the mark of being ‘smoke-free’ by 2030 by 10 years, after the Government set a target in 2019 saying less than 5% of the population should be continuing to smoke by 2030. The Government, too, is on track to miss its own targets by nine years and, in some of the most disadvantaged areas, it could be double this.
In Nottingham city, the wards with the highest smoking rates are Aspley, at 38.5%, and St Ann’s, at 36.7%. Smoking is estimated to kill 1,124 people across Nottinghamshire each year.
