Inverclyde councillor wants swift action on single use vapes

Municipal Buildings bosses have been forced to apologise to elected members for their slow response to an agreed anti-vaping strategy - having taken six MONTHS to prepare a report on the issue.

It is feared that disposable single-use e-cigarettes are harming the health of young people in the district and SNP group leader Elizabeth Robertson has voiced her frustration at the sluggish reaction of senior officers.

The delayed report to the local authority's environment and regeneration committee - which was first requested last September - tells how one secondary school had vape sensors installed in its toilets as part of a pilot project.

READ MORE: Concerned Inverclyde councillor wants clampdown on vapes

But Councillor Robertson said she was ‘disappointed’ in the document and expressed concerns about the impact that delays could have on local young people’s wellbeing.

She said: “It was many months ago that taking action on this became the settled will of the council and we’ve had to request, request and request again for simple updates on this to happen.

“In the meantime, this has become an increasingly dangerous situation for predominantly young people in Inverclyde."

Officials state that there has been success in detecting pupils vaping in the toilets the sensors have been installed in, which has led to a reduction in the number of disposable vapes being found discarded in the school building.

A decision about rolling the sensors out across all secondary schools will be taken after the trial concludes.

Councillor Robertson said: “We know that there are young people who are being harmed and are harming themselves with the use of nicotine products in the form of vape who would never have taken up or probably never have taken up cigarette smoking.

“It has become a really huge issue in our community which was emphasised to us through Clyde Conversations engagement with young people that we had just a few weeks ago.

“This is a huge issue for young people, and it is frustrating that it seems that very little has happened over the intervening period since this became the settled will of the council and there might have been things that we could have prevented.

“There could be harm that we were able to prevent.

“I worry that we’ve not seen this as the public health issue, the care and protection of our young people issue, that it is in the community and there has been a lot of harm that has been done by us not doing very much in the period since the decision to take action on this as an issue became the settled will of the council.”

Councillor Sandra Reynolds called for action on disposable e-cigarette sales and promos last September and had a motion on the issue approved by the full council that same month. 

Her request called on the council to take a range of actions, which included expanding its 'test purchasing' procedures to include the sale of vaping products to youngsters and examining the possibility of introducing an 'Inverclyde Retailers Charter' to stop cash sales of vapes.

She requested that officers bring forward a report to the environment and regeneration committee, but it took officials almost six months to produce this. 

Inverclyde Council’s environment and regeneration director, Stuart Jamieson, was forced to apologise for the document’s delay.

He said: “Clearly there was a request for a report on single use vapes, it’s been outstanding for considerable period of time, so I apologise to the committee that it’s taken so long to bring a report to committee.

“I also apologise in terms of the level of detail in respect of the report because much of it has been superseded by the fact that the government has taken their initiative in respect of single use vapes.

“What I can assure members of the committee is that as well as the activity by the Scottish Government, officers from public protection will be making and have been making attempts to address the anti-social use in terms of the selling of single use vapes to children.”

The report also sets out how officers had created a video about vaping and delivered a session to all S1 to S6 pupils where they went into ‘great detail’ about the effects the products could have on them.

The UK Government has announced its intention to introduce an outright ban on the sale and supply of single use vapes, with similar controls also planned by the Scottish Government.

Recently it has been confirmed that the proposed controls are set to be introduced from April 2025, which council officers expect to lead to a dramatic reduction in the availability of the items.