Drinking culture under the spotlight

Richmondshire residents are being encouraged to think about how the binge drinking culture can be curbed.

The district council’s environmental health team is inviting people to send their views and comments on not just the increase in drinking, but also the risks to health it brings with it.

The health profile of the district shows that one of the three highest priorities in improving health of local people is work to tackle increasing and high-risk drinking of alcohol.

Drinking too much alcohol contributes to a number of problems – that range from liver damage to high blood pressure or obesity – amid national evidence that alcohol abuse is putting a growing toll both on A&E services but also hospital care across all age ranges.

“The UK is one of the few European countries where alcohol consumption has increased over the past 50 years,” said the district’s environmental health manager, Philip Mepham.

“The culture here seems to be one where it has become acceptable by some to be excessively drunk in public and cause nuisance and harm to themselves and others.”

In 2011, the Yorkshire Post revealed the region now has the highest proportion of population in the country at “increased risk drinking” – people who regularly drink to excess at home – with the problem particularly severe in North Yorkshire.

The levels of binge drinking among 15- to 16-year-olds in the UK compares poorly with many other European countries.

Alcohol consumption in the home has increased by 50 per cent in the last decade.

Mr Mepham added: “Locally we have the opportunity to consider how this culture is affecting the health of people, especially young people, and therefore our economic success.

“Unless drunkenness is made as socially unacceptable as smoking, the damage to this and future generations and society in general will continue to worsen.”