East Sussex towns named among coastal areas ‘suffering from deepening health crisis’ says Professor Sir Chris Whitty

Professor Sir Chris Whitty fears that coastal communities that already suffered “some of the worst health outcomes in the country”, have seen these problems increase over the past two years and now risk being “left behind”.

Stats by the ONS (Office for National Statistics) show that most coastal communities have lower-than-average expectancy for England. And in many, men will live an average of at least five years less than those in the area with the longest lifespans – Kensington and Chelsea, London, where men live for an average of 83.9 years, and women 87.

In Eastbourne the average life expectancy for a man is 79.14 and 83.4 for a woman, In Hastings it is even lower with an expectancy of 78.02 for men and 81.75 for women.

Eastbourne resident Kimberlee Cole believes that the air quality in the town has affected her health after moving back from France.

Kimberlee Cole told the i newspaper: “People move here thinking they are coming here for the clean air”

But the 67 year-old, who suffers from bronchiectasis and asthma, thinks her lung conditions have actually worsened due to air quality since moving to seaside Eastbourne.

She says air pollution in the Victorian resort – hit by a busy shipping lane, the industrial coast of France, and proximity to Brighton and London – means she is unable to drive in the town with her car windows down or the air conditioning on.

She monitors air quality daily, and says it affects her when she goes outside. Bronchiectasis is a condition where the lungs go slack, leading to a build-up of mucus that makes them vulnerable to infection.

“You know what your lungs tell you, that the air is not good and you get alerts on your phone to say that the air quality has decreased.”

She moved to the countryside in Brittany in France for six years, and found her lungs and persistent cough worsening after she moved back to the UK ten years ago and started coughing up blood.

“I wish we’d never come back really, because I’ve got worse and worse and worse with every passing year,” she says. “And in France I was nowhere near as bad as I am now.”

She has had a group of good doctors and access to treatment, but said that other Eastbourne residents in her Breathe Easy support group had struggled to get appointments with GPs and specialists.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We are committed to levelling up the health of the nation so everyone can live longer, healthier lives, regardless of their location or background.

“Our Major Conditions Strategy will address regional disparities in health outcomes and narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030.

“We are also supporting adult social care with £562 million of new ringfenced funding which will be made available to local authorities in 2023-24, and are supporting local authorities to address workforce pressures with our new national recruitment campaign.”