Residents in Aldershot and Farnborough will be told to do more exercise after the news that the towns have some of the least healthy populations in Hampshire.

Rushmoor Borough Council and Hampshire Primary Care Trust (PCT) met at the Princes Hall in Aldershot last Friday to discuss the problem.

The meeting was held to prepare plans to help deal with what the PCT is calling “health inequalities” in Rushmoor.

Initial work will focus on preventing heart disease and strokes.

Heart disease and strokes account for one in three deaths in Hampshire and those most at risk are aged between 49 and 69.

Working with the council, the PCT is aiming to provide a variety of activities and services to promote prevention rather than a cure.

These activities will focus on helping those in the age bracket most at risk including smokers, high blood pressure sufferers, those who are overweight and those who have high cholesterol levels.

The event on Friday was attended by Rushmoor Borough Council, Hampshire PCT and voluntary groups.

Peter Amies, head of community services at Rushmoor, said: “The meeting was very much a case of imparting information to an audience and bringing them up to speed and bringing the health of the area into context.”

He said the council was particularly focussing on getting people to be more physically active and tackling obesity.

Hannah O’Neil, communications and engagement officer with the PCT, said: “We looked at the healthy lifestyle statistics and where the borough is at the moment and then it was discovered where there are gaps. Once all the gaps are known, another stakeholders’ meeting will be held to find out how those gaps can be filled.”

The groups will meet again in the autumn to build a strategy to tackle the problems.

Once that is done, GPs will identify those most at risk in Rushmoor with the aim of helping them to change their lifestyles.