End cheap booze, say health chiefs

Reporter: by BEATRIZ AYALA
Date online: 03 February 2009

HEALTH chiefs across Greater Manchester are calling for the end of cheap alcohol promotions in pubs and clubs.

Alan Higgins, director of Public Health for Oldham and lead director of Public Health for Alcohol in Greater Manchester, said he was deeply concerned about the current alcohol culture, which was proving a major burden across the county.

The warnings followed alcohol-fuelled violence outside the Tokyo Project club in Roscoe Street in the early hours of Saturday.

Police, politicians and health experts had criticised the club’s controversial £5.99 all-you-can-drink deal, which ran throughout January.

Mr Higgins said 80 per cent of respondents to the Big Drink Debate alcohol survey said low prices and discounts increased the amount people drank.

A total of 30,000 people responded to last year’s Big Drink Debate in the North-West between May and the end of August, 2008.

He said: “Greater Manchester has the worst health statistics in relations to alcohol according to health profiles published at the end of last year.

“This includes months of life lost, hospital admissions for alcohol-related harm, alcohol-related recorded crimes and claimants of incapacity benefit.”

Mr Higgins said around half of residents avoided town centres at night because of the drunken behaviour of others.

He said: “We have to ask can we afford this in terms of cost to individuals who suffer illness and death, communities experiencing fear and intimidation and the cost to health, police and other public services?

“This is a major burden on Greater Manchester. Across Greater Manchester, we are calling for pubs and clubs to be responsible by not offering cheap alcohol promotions.”

Greater Manchester has some of the worst alcohol–related health problems in the country.

Alison Giles, director of Our Life which ran the Big Drink Debate in the North-West in conjunction with Government Office and the Department of Health, said: “More than 30,000 people from across the North-West, many of them from Greater Manchester, told us that cheap alcohol increases drinking.

“We must all now think more seriously about the terrible consequences cheap alcohol has on our local communities — for long-term health and for developing our town centres as safe and welcoming to all residents.”

Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said: “It is absolutely imperative that public health concerns are included in licensing regulations so that action can be taken to protect innocent consumers and by-standers from the damaging effects of alcohol.”