PUBS across Dorset have had their say on potential plans to ban smoking in outside spaces.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has not ruled out a smoking ban in spaces such as pub gardens, outdoor restaurants and outside hospitals.

Pete Hector, who owns All Hail Ale in Westbourne, said: “The government has taken it a step too far, I realise that smoking costs the NHS quite a lot of money, but then so does drinking.

“But they don't do anything about supermarkets cutting their prices or putting their prices up to stop my people drinking at home.

“I'm a smoker myself and I step outside my pub and have a smoke on pavement, same as all my clients do.

“It's going to put another nail in a lot of pubs coffins.”

A staff member at The Westbourne pub in Westbourne said: “I definitely disagree.

“I think if they did something like if you have designated smoking areas, that would be more helpful because then you could have designated smoking areas and non smoking areas outside spaces. It just means that all the customers are going to be on pavement.”

A member of the Grasshopper in Parkstone said: “I don't agree that you should ban somebody. It's outside, it's not inside, we’ve already taken smoking from the inside.

“So why do I take it from outside? Maybe do what they do in America. Have sections that you can smoke and have sections that you can’t.”

“At the end of the day, what's going to happen next? You're not allowed to drink?

“It's meant to be a sociable place so you can socialise with people.”

However, Joe, manager at the Horse and Groom in Wareham is on the fence about the ban.

He said: “'I’m in two minds about it all because obviously I can see why it's good for people's health and things like that.

"I've been working in pubs for that long and I remember how much of a change the indoor smoking ban in 2007 was. I think it'd be one of those things that it will affect us especially. We've got such lovely courtyards and stuff and people do smoke out here.

“But I do think it’ll be very good for people's health.”

Mark Ambrose, owner of the Barking Cat in Parkstone said: "I was all for the smoking ban inside pubs but pushing this ban to pub gardens is beyond ridiculous.

"Pubs are struggling as it is and introducing this ban would be disastrous.

"Smokers would just buy cheap cans from the supermarket and drink at home instead.

"It’s not just Mr Bloggs having a cigarette in the garden, its communities being pushed away from their comfortable meeting places."