Quit smoking aid hit by Telford council cash cuts
Anti-smoking projects are to be cut by £200,000 as part of savings by Telford & Wrekin Council, it was revealed today.
The move is part of a near £750,000 cut to the council's public health budget that also includes plans to scrap free swimming for over-50s at the council's four leisure centres.
The quit smoking schemes have been acknowledged as being a success.
Nearly 120 pregnant women were supported to give up smoking in 2014/15 and in total more than 1,000 smokers were supported to stop lighting up in the same period.
But council bosses say they have no choice and claim the cuts have been forced upon them by having their own public health grant from the Government slashed.
Shropshire Council said it had no plans to change its services, but said it would reveal more about its intentions in the coming days.
In Telford, the authority had planned to spend £562,000 on quit smoking guidance and programmes in the 2015/16 financial year.
But in a report due to go before the council's ruling cabinet on Thursday, proposals are revealed to slash £190,000 from that to absorb some of the cuts from Whitehall.
Councillor Richard Overton, Telford & Wrekin Council's cabinet member for public health, said: "The Government has confirmed that it will claw back £750,000 from our public health budget, and we must return this sum to them.
"This means that projects we have already started like free swimming and help for people to stop smoking must change.
"This additional and unbudgeted in-year public health cut on top of this, means that funding for our smoking cessation services has been squeezed."
