ROLL-UP! Roll-up! Roll up! To improve your health, and there is no need to go very far to do it either - a health roadshow is rolling on to the Barrack Estate in Great Yarmouth.

ROLL-UP! Roll-up! Roll up! To improve your health, and there is no need to go very far to do it either - a health roadshow is rolling on to the Barrack Estate in Great Yarmouth.

The event tomorrow is aimed at providing local residents with support and access to a range of health and wellbeing initiatives.

Michael Blank, chairman of the ComeUnity's Neighbourhood Management Board, who are organising the roadshow said: “We recently commissioned a survey about how people felt about living on the estate and 196 people responded out of 1,500 and this gave us a clearer picture of people's concerns.

“The survey highlighted issues we hadn't really considered the first time around, including mental health.”

Neighbourhood Officer at ComeUnity, Leon de Beer, explained a previous roadshow on the Middlegate Estate had been a success.

He said: “It is sometimes the obvious that you have to remind people of, like healthy eating and nutrition, and we had the experts on hand to advise accordingly. In this way we can appeal for people to come and see us even if they don't usually turn up for their own local meetings.”

Mr Blank added: “We have had a tremendous response so far and we feel greatly encouraged. I think part of this success is because it works from community outwards, or bottom up if you like. In this way we can talk to people directly in a friendly manner.

“The bottle bank we have recently introduced for the area is a ComeUnity initiative, so we can make a real difference to the environment in which people live.”

Mr Blank said that the Middlegate Estate has improved in more recent times and said it was sad that an area built to support working families servicing local industries including fishing in the 1950s, had suffered a decline.

He said: “I think that when a number of the properties were refurbished, with so much work going on, a number of people did move on at that time.

“The area became wide open for drugs and this in turn led to other social problems. But I'm pleased to say that things have improved because the police have been proactive in targeting the area and this had led to a safer environment.”

There will also be a police-led Respect Action Week from October 28 to November 3.

The Health Roadshow will be at the Peggotty Road Community Centre, tomorrow between 11am to 2pm.

Agencies taking part include Community Connections Health Trainer Team, Community Connections, PCT Mobile Food Store, PCSOs, Credit Union, and the ComeUnity Team.