HEALTH experts are offering businesses more advice to help staff give up cigarettes as the countdown to a smoke-free Darlington draws closer.

To mark World No Tobacco Day, stop smoking experts from Darlington Primary Care Trust and Darlington Borough Council pitched an advice tent in the town centre in a joint venture to promote smoke-free environments.

The council has appointed a healthy workplaces officer to help companies understand how the smoking ban will affect them.

More than 100 companies in Darlington have already enforced the ban before the July 1 deadline and have been awarded National Clean Air Awards.

Darlington Primary Care Trust specialist smoking advisor Darcy Brown said: "In Darlington, with our help, 729 people have successfully quit smoking within the last financial year.

"That's seven years in a row where we have exceeded our targets, with the last quarter our most successful since the stop-smoking service began in 2000."

Stopping to blow into a smokerlyzer and test her breathing, smoker Joanne McGann, 29, of Darlington, said she was thinking about giving up smoking in the future.

"I was gutted when I first heard about the smoking ban, but it's good to know advice is here for people who want to quit," she said.

Smokers who want to quit can get help and advice from a drop-in centre at Park Place Health Centre, near the Civic Theatre, each Monday, from 2pm to 3pm.

For more information, contact Darcy Brown on 01325-746114.