CUMBRIA’S public health chief has called for a sweeping crackdown on school run parents, fast food outlets, pubs and tobacconists to improve people’s health in the county.

Dr John Ashton’s ideas include:

  • Setting up no stopping areas outside school gates to make parents drop children off five minutes’ walk away;
  • Cutting the number of fast food outlets near schools and hospitals;
  • Banning pubs and shops which encourage binge drinking through happy hours and other promotions from selling booze;
  • Introducing greater res-trictions on the sale of tobacco.

Dr Ashton, the director of public health and county medical officer for Cumbria, has made the demands as part of his annual report on health in the county.

The report also highlights a regional and economic disparity of up to 20 years on the life-expectancies bet-ween deprived and privileged Cumbrians.

The outspoken Dr Ashton – who recently called for class A drugs to be legalised – said: “The scale of the challenge in Cumbria is enormous and matches that of many urban centres in the UK, but there are many simple and practical things we can do.

“I would like to see local authorities investigate the greater use of their well-being powers and assess whether they could make imaginative local bylaws to improve health.”

He said the major killers in Cumbria were coronary heart disease and cancer, and called for areas around schools and hospitals to be free from fast food outlets.

“Food has to be seen as a medical intervention for a lot of the conditions people are being treated for in hospital,” he said.

“It makes sense to have a healthy zone around hospi-tals so people are not leaping off beds to get fast food.”

Dr Ashton wants schools and local authorities to set up no stopping areas outside schools to encourage more pupil exercise.

“We need to discourage the school run. Parents should not be able to be allowed to drop their children off outside school. They should have to drop them off about a five-minute walk away,” he said.

And on cigarettes Dr Ashton said: “We should be aiming for tobacco to be served from brown paper bags in chemists like condoms used to be.”

Peter Baxter, owner of Airey’s of Kendal, a specialist tobacco shop in Stricklandgate, said: “It would finish me off if the tobacco was to go. I don’t think there is any need to put it under the counter, I totally oppose that. If you make it harder to buy, you’ll just encourage a black market.”

Coun Jonathan Stephenson, chairman of South Lakeland District Council’s licensing committee, said he supported Dr Ashton’s aims to restrict alcohol sales but current licensing laws prevented committees from taking public health into consideration while deciding on granting licences.

“I think we should do everything we can to encourage responsible drinking but our hands are tied in this particular field,” he told The Westmorland Gazette.

Dr Ashton’s report warned of the problems that an ageing population could cause in Cumbria.

Within 20 years, the county could see dementia cases rocket by 82 per cent and the number of people needing social care would rise by 25 per cent, he said.

The aging population would also place a strain on the county’s housing infrastructure. He has called for urgent, regular housing surveys to be completed and linked to planning. Unusually, he also called for action to be taken to avoid fuel poverty by harnessing renewable sources of energy in Cumbria.