A pilot scheme to promote and help the community make healthier lifestyle choices will be launched in West Suffolk.

Forest Heath District Council and Live Well Suffolk, a free healthy lifestyle service which provides information and support to help people become healthier, successfully bid for Suffolk County Council to find a community health coach for Brandon and Mildenhall.

The scheme will offer services to residents that will help them make healthier lifestyle choices and the community health coach will offer group programmes and one to one support from March next year, with the pilot due to finish at the end of December 2015.

Warwick Hirst, Forest Heath cabinet member for health, leisure and culture, said: “It is brilliant news that the district council has successfully bid for this Community Health Coach.

“The community heath coach should be in place by the New Year – just in time for some of those New Year’s resolutions that we all struggle to stick to.”

Dan Ford, part of the project team at Live Well Suffolk, added: “The community health coach will be involved in helping organise physical activity courses, weight management programmes as well as helping people who want to quit smoking.

“These services will be run from centres in Brandon, Mildenhall and Newmarket. We already offer many of these services from Bury St Edmunds – however a more local community health coach will allow us to reach more people in Forest Heath and bring services to their doorstep.”

For more information about the services, email info@livewellsuffolk.org.uk or call 01473 229297.