Vaping on college campus is to be banned

A sixth form college in Hull is to ban students from vaping on campus after the issue became "a real problem over the past three years".

Wilberforce College, on Saltshouse Road, said it would introduce tougher rules from 2 June and would work to reduce the number of students who vaped.

Staff have held sessions with students as young as 16 to highlight the dangers of vaping and had offered access to stop-smoking services and NHS staff.

Colin Peaks, the college principal, said: "We've seen more and more students turn up and vape. We want to get rid of it completely. It needs to disappear."

Mr Peaks said a recent survey of his students had shown 25% of them wanted to quit the habit but many did not perceive vapes as being as damaging as cigarettes.

"Some of them just don't take it seriously and, until that changes, I don't know how we're going to manage to solve the issue," he said.

"We see them socialising while they vape and they think it's OK to be around. You wouldn't stand next to a smoker, but with vaping it seems to be a completely different mindset."

Mr Peaks told the BBC he was worried about how his students gained access to vapes when the legal age to buy them was 18.

"You think, where are they buying these from? Why are they getting them so easily?

"There's a vibrant look to them. They all like the flavours – it's just they don't understand the dangers."

A BBC investigation has found that, of those trading standards teams who responded, Hull has the highest number of seized illegal vapes in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

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