In the absence of national directives and resources, successful alcohol strategy requires a process that pulls in key local players and secures their commitment to action. The challenge is to find the most powerful drivers for change, and use these to influence action across the board.

We can write an alcohol strategy for you, but our favoured approach is firstly to engage local key players in the strategy development process, and get action on alcohol built into other strategic plans. This assumes there is already an evidence base, or some agreement on the local issues and priorities – if not, a needs assessment or impact study may be necessary.

Our approach is then to develop a draft strategy that draws all the necessary components into one document, and an implementation plan for the person or group of people that will have responsibility for getting the strategy agreed upon locally, and taking it forward. We have unparalleled experience in local alcohol strategy development, and the LDAN/Alcohol Concern Local Alcohol Strategy Toolkit, which now forms the basis of most alcohol strategies, was project-managed by Libby Ranzetta, also the lead author.