NORTH East Lincolnshire Council has made an official commitment in its bid to "inspire a smoke-free generation".
A public event at Grimsby Town Football Club featured presentations from a number of figures on local stop smoking service activity.
Every day in the Yorkshire and the Humber region, 51 children aged 11 to 15 years take up smoking – which amounts to 18,000 in a year.
The event was opened by portfolio holder for health and wellbeing Councillor Peter Wheatley, who declared an aspiration to "make smoking history" in North East Lincolnshire.
He said: "Local authorities across the UK are key organisations in reducing smoking prevalence in their area and NELC is no exception.
"Our range of services include supporting smokers to quit, providing programmes in schools to reduce the uptake of smoking by young people, promoting smokefree environments and tackling underage sales and illicit tobacco in our area.
"Signing the declaration is an illustration of our commitment to continue this work and to develop it further by working with regional and national colleagues to address the causes and impacts of tobacco use."
Geoff Barnes, acting director of public health, said: "I am delighted that the council is making this declaration and, in doing so, is confirming its commitment to ensuring that tackling smoking remains a priority issue.
"We are determined to do all that we can to reduce the prevalence of smoking in North East Lincolnshire and, in turn, the health issues and preventable deaths that smoking causes within our communities."
Fiona Dobbie, a research fellow at the University Of Stirling, travelled down from Scotland to present the findings of a long-term study into the effectiveness of NHS support programmes to which our local services had made a significant contribution.
The study found that our local services have high levels of user satisfaction, short-term quit outcomes are higher than national average and longer term outcomes are on a par with the national average.
The overall findings confirm that smokers quitting with the support of local NHS stop smoking services are four times more likely to have remained quit at the one year point than those attempting to quit on their own.
Smokers wanting more information on what support is available to them should contact the stop service on 0845 603 2166.
ON THE WEB: For more on the council's Stoptober campaign, go to www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk
