The Acting Director for Health and Wellbeing presented a report in response to the request from Members for an update on each of the following action to tackle increasing rates of obesity within Wirral:

·  Local obesity statistics (with the inclusion of data on diabetes prevalence).

·  ‘Eat Well Wirral’ programme.

·  Takeaway licensing.

The Acting Director reported that this work was a key strand of the Wirral 2020 Plan Pledge ‘Wirral Residents Live Healthier Lives’ and sat within a much broader set of actions designed to tackle obesity.  She informed that action to reduce levels of obesity needed to take a system-wide approach incorporating the following:

Planning; transport; housing; environment; behaviour-change; and social and health care systems.

Members noted that further work was required to develop a system wide response and that action on reducing childhood obesity would provide the focus of a report to the Committee in February 2019.

Members asked the Acting Director for Health and Wellbeing and a Planning Officer who was working on policies for the Local Plan to which planning applications would be determined (Eddie Fleming) a number of questions which were answered accordingly. Matters discussed included the following:

·  Reference was made to a school on the Wirral were most of the children had a take-away on a daily basis and that was despite the fact that the majority of the children in the school were also on free school meals.  There was a real dilemma here about education and meeting nutritional needs.  It was proposed that consideration be given to how this awareness of poor quality could be tackled. 

·  In parts of the Borough there were numerous take-away restaurants grouped together.  It was noted that to produce a planning policy and supplementary planning guidance there had to be an evidence-base and it had to be subject to statutory procedures before the Council could introduce it.  Planning Officers where working with colleagues in Public Health and Environmental Health.  They had a copy of the report and were looking at the best way to include it in an evidence base as the intention was to strengthen one of the draft policies in the Local Plan so that it could control the number of take-away restaurants in areas and particularly where there were schools.  Recommendations would be made to the Cabinet and then the Council’s approval would be sought before it went out to public consultation. When all of the comments were received they would be inspected by the Secretary of State’s Planning Inspector and if the evidence was shown to be robust enough to defend a policy that restricted takeaways around schools or anywhere else that the Council deemed fit. That would become an adopted policy that would have to be adhered to when determining planning applications. The aim was to produce a draft Local Plan with Supplementary Planning documents for consideration by the Council in July 2019.

·  Members wanted to know what needed to be done to ensure that there were not loads of very poor eateries close to each other that were destroying children’s lives.

·  The report referred to 80% of obese children in Wirral who would become obese adults.  The Government did not set any direction so the Council should and it needed to know how to do it.

·  Reference was made to the ‘Eat Well Wirral’ programme referred to in the report and the way foods that could go on sale could be tackled.  However, the problem was that Planning did not have any control over existing take-away restaurants. Planning could only control planning applications for new development. The best thing that could be done to support a planning policy was robust evidence that was traceable and could be monitored. If there was an appeal against a decision to refuse planning permission, a Planning Inspector would make the determination and robust evidence would need to be available to support the policy whether it be a Local Plan or through supplementary planning documents to support the Local Plan.

·  Members wanted to know what the results of the ‘Eat Well Wirral’ programme were to date.

·  A system wide approach was required and planning was a part of this but it was about working through the Wirral Together approach and working with communities to understand how they could be helped to have a better relationship with food e.g. How to make the most of allotments in the local areas, Children’s Centres, Cookery Classes and what Health Visitors were doing with new mums etc. There were a lot of things that could be done, that were community based, so that people could have a better relationship with food.

RESOLVED:

That the actions taken to tackle growing trends in obesity as outlined in the report be noted.