ROSSENDALE Council has taken on a Healthy Workplace Officer' following a £100,000 grant from the Government.

Earlier this year, Rossendale Council got the one-off payment from the Government's Communities for Health funding stream.

The money will be used to: encourage local businesses to develop safe and healthy work places; support local businesses to become smoke-free; tackle alcohol and drug abuse, where appropriate; encourage employees to take exercise; promote healthy eating; and encourage businesses to care of the environment.

Andrea Guthrie, 41, joins Rossendale after gaining a first class honours degree in environmental health from Salford University.

Initially, Andrea will concentrate on helping local businesses to comply with the new smoke free legislation that came into effect on July 1. The law affects more than 2,000 businesses in Rossendale.

The post is thought to be the first of its kind at an East Lancashire council.

Andrea said: "We know that there is a direct link between healthy employees and happy, motivated employees, where management and employee relations are better and sickness and absenteeism levels are less, and where staff turnover decreases as do business insurance costs.

"Healthy employees simply make great business sense."

Andrea said that statistics show that people in Rossendale die, on average, younger than people in many other parts of the country, due to ill health and poverty.

Local residents are also more likely to suffer from cancer, heart disease or a stroke than people in many parts of the country, she added.