British top ten smoking cities and towns

Op-Ed: The city of Kingston-upon-Hull, or Hull as it is also called, on the north bank of the River Humber, Yorkshire, and my home city traditionally features high in any negative poll and low in polls that are positive and it seems as far as smoking goes the status quo is maintained.

The number of smoker's across the U.K. continues to fall on the back of measures to curb smoking but not universally across England and the United Kingdom. The latest figures are:

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The top 10 areas with the highest rate of adult smokers are:
Blackpool / 26.9%
Kingston upon Hull / 26.4%
Manchester / 25.8%
Salford / 24.4%
Nottingham / 24.2%
Blackburn with Darwen / 23.6%
Hartlepool / 23.4%
Wakefield / 23.4%
North East Lincolnshire / 23.3%
Brighton and Hove / 23.1

And here’s the lowest. 
Wokingham / 9.8%
Richmond upon Thames / 11.2%
Windsor and Maidenhead / 12.1%
Hounslow / 12.3%North Somerset / 12.4%
Cheshire East / 12.6%
Solihull / 12.6%
Harrow / 13.1%
Barnet / 13.2%
City of London / 13.3%

As you can see from the lists above Hull almost made it to the number one position!

The figures do show a semi north south divide but not entirely. Just why some areas of the U.K. have populations hooked on smoking is not clear.

These days you cannot smoke in a pub, at work or in numerous other places in England.

Free help to quit smoking is available via the N.H.S. More people now 'vape' rather than smoke.

Smoking can cause a range of health conditions, some life-threatening, but not all smokers get cancer and some non-smokers do. Air pollution remains bad in parts of the U.K. and is damaging to health.

Cigarettes and tobacco are not displayed in supermarkets but rather stored behind closed doors.

Do attempts to deter smoking act as a red rag to a bull and have the reverse effect on some young people? That is difficult to know.

The newly released health watchdog data identifies parts of England where smoking is still a popular 'habit' and others where it is not.

What can be done to bring down numbers in places such as Blackpool and Hull is not known.

Related:
Standardised cigarette packaging Britain
How to quit smoking the cold turkey way
Smoking rots your brain