The South East Public Health Observatory has just published a health summary which shows how the health of the people living in the New Forest District compares with the rest of England.

Details of all the data (very detailed) can be found on the website www.healthprofiles.info

The two most striking areas of concern for the New Forest are road injuries and deaths and the incidence of skin cancer, malignant melanoma.

I do feel rather vindicated by my actions in recent years. I have campaigned vigorously for safety improvements and have been successful particularly in getting investment into the A326 and Marchwood village.

I also feel very pleased that my long running campaign, to get the sun-beds removed from all our Health & Leisure Centres, was eventually successful. Of course, we may never really know how many local people who suffered the skin cancer did so through exposure to council run sun-beds. The important point is that the risk has now been removed.

In view of the latest information, I’m now going to be pressing for the Environmental Health Officers on the New Forest District Council to tighten up on commercial operators in the area. I hope actually, that they all go out of business – if you visit the various cancer charity web-sites, you quickly learn that there is really no such thing as a “healthy tan”.