YOUNG Karl Pitt set to work with a creative designer yesterday to see his winning anti-smoking logo highlighting the dangers of smoke become a reality.

Karl, nine, of Tanfield Lea Junior School, near Stanley, won the Smoke Free Derwentside logo competition.

As part of his achievement he was taken on a tour of the design studio and print room at Hillprint Media, in Newton Aycliffe, near Darlington. He then worked with designer John Myers, before getting a mounted copy of his design to take away. Karl was one of 600 school children aged four to 18 in the Derwentside area who entered the competition to design a logo for a project called Smoke Free Derwentside.

Karl's winning logo design will be used to identify areas such as homes, workplaces, public spaces and schools that have smoke-free status.

Smoke Free Derwentside, launched last July, aims to improve the health of everyone in the district by encouraging policies that reduce the amount of tobacco smoke in the environment.

Dr Anne Low, director of public health for Derwentside, said: "Smoke Free Derwentside is an important project for the area because it will tackle smoking, one of the major risk factors for ill health and early death from coronary heart disease, cancers, stroke and many other conditions.

"In the North-East there are over 5,500 smoking-related deaths each year.

"However, this statistic hides the hundreds of thousands of people who suffer poor health as a result of active or passive smoking."