Smoke free Oxfordshire by 2025 – grants available
Stopping smoking is the single best thing an individual can do for their health and wellbeing.
As part of the delivery of the County’s Tobacco Control Strategy (pdf format, 3Mb) and the ambition to become a smoke free county by 2025 (five years ahead of the national 2030 target), we are supporting smokefree initiatives including smokefree homes, cars, play parks and school gates.
What’s a smoke free county?
For a county to be classed as smokefree, the smoking prevalence for the population must be below 5%. Currently it is 10.2% in Oxfordshire so there is still a lot of work to be done. Town and parish councils are uniquely placed to support this vital work by partnering with Oxfordshire County Council to help us work across local communities to promote smokefree environments, particularly the smokefree playparks initiative and the smokefree community fund.
Smokefree Parks
Playparks/playgrounds in Oxfordshire are priority areas we’d like to become smokefree as our recent Smokefree Survey found that around 90% of 300 smokers surveyed in the 10 most deprived LSOA wards in Oxfordshire agreed to these areas becoming smokefree. We would like to work with District, parish and town councils to create smokefree playparks/playgrounds.
The County will provide free signage and implementation support for any Parish or Town council owned park/playground to create a smokefree environment for local children playing in the area. Some examples of proposed signage include -
Smokefree Community Fund
The Smokefree Community Fund aims to provide financial support, with funding of £150-£1000 available, to town/ parish councils and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector organisations who want to create smokefree spaces and/or hold smokefree events. You could create a smokefree policy for your premises, remove ashtrays or smoking shelters, or get your community to create some smokefree signage! If you’re having an event that children and young people will be attending, you may want to consider making your event smokefree to protect children from the harms of second-hand smoke. More information can be found in the attached flyer.
More information on the Fund can be found in the link below:
If you are interested in applying to the Smokefree Community Fund, please email smokefreeoxon@oxfordshire.gov.uk for more details and to start the application process.
Smokefree School Gates
Another initiative the Public Team at Oxfordshire County Council have recently launched is Smokefree School Gates. Smokefree School Gates aims to protect children from the harms of second-hand smoke during drop-off and pick-up at school and to de-normalise smoking to create a smokefree generation.
Oxfordshire County Council's Public Health team is willing to support schools in creating smokefree policies for their premises and provide financial support in creating and printing signage to be placed at school gates and/or entrances.
Some examples of smokefree school gates signage created by our pilot school, Wood Farm Primary School, are below:
More information can be found in the following links
To implement smokefree parks, smokefree school gates and/or apply for the smokefree funding, please email smokefreeoxon@oxfordshire.gov.uk
Useful links;