You cannot argue with the facts. Almost two thirds of adults are now overweight or obese and we know that lack of exercise can contribute to early death – the statistics bear that out.

From a purely political point a view, a healthy and actively engaged population involved in council projects and programmes sounds like a sort of utopia, the rewards of which councillors would reap in abundance.

Councils were told just last week that if they tackled a UK-wide "inactivity pandemic" they could help save the economy a staggering £1.2bn. Achieving this, according to a recent study, would require cutting inactivity levels by just 1% a year for five years.

But how hard is this to achieve? Most councils already run referral exercise schemes free of charge, but these rely on the NHS to identify participants and targets support on the most obese or vulnerable. They are focused on individuals, not whole populations.

Number crunching demonstrates that some cities and regions face a bigger challenge: in Copeland, Cumbria, three quarters of people are overweight. In Doncaster, the second largest town, 74% of people are an unhealthy size. These figures are troubling, not least because the business of public health has been out of council hands for four decades; now they have the tough task of picking up the pieces. Small schemes for hand-picked individuals at particular risk are not going to solve the problem fast enough...