500 Wiltshire residents die to smoking every year
15,000 suffer from serious smoking-related diseases.
Five hundred Wiltshire residents die every year from smoking, while 15,000 suffer from serious smoking-related diseases.
Those were some of the key findings of a new report presented to Wiltshire councillors.
Members of the council’s Public Health team gave an update to the council’s Health and Wellbeing Board at the end of the first year of the Smokefree Generation Programme, which aims to reduce the habit to five per cent of the county’s population – roughly 15,000 smokers – by 2029.
The meeting heard that the smoking rate in the county was currently 10.6 per cent of the population.
Shockingly, the report found, 780 children in the county take up the habit every year. Two-thirds of those who try smoking before the age of 18 become regular smokers, and only a third succeed in quitting during their lifetime.
Marie Fitzgerald, a public health specialist with Wiltshire Council’s public health team, said that smoking was most prevalent among those least able to afford cigarettes, with the average packet of 20 cigarettes now costing around £16.
The average smoker now spends £2,338 on cigarettes every year, and smoking is forcing 10,000 Wiltshire households a year into poverty.
She added that smoking is more prevalent among certain population groups in the county – 14.5 per cent of routine and manual workers smoke, as do 23.2 per cent of residents with a long-term mental health condition.
And she revealed that smoking was negatively impacting Wiltshire’s economy by £209 million a year, as smokers became ill while of working age.
In a bid to help smokers quit, a team of health coaches and a public health practitioner were recruited to improve access to support, offering services through food banks, job centres, and charities focussed on housing, homelessness, and debt.
The move had seen 205 residents pledging to quit, with 96 staying smoke-free for four weeks or more.
The programme also saw 127 residents given nicotine replacement medications.
A marketing campaign saw 189 residents seek help for their addiction between December 2024 and March 2025, compared to 22 during the same period the year before.
And the council continued its zero-tolerance approach to the sale of illicit
tobacco and vape products, using detection dogs to seize illegal products. As a result of the campaign, six Wiltshire businesses were issued with closure orders.
The meeting heard that the public health team expected even more smokers to quit in year two of the Smokefree Generation Programme.