West Suffolk Council Street Trading Policy – Review and Consultation

Audience: Street traders, businesses and residents

This consultation is now closed.

It was open from 8 July 2024 to 5 August 2024.

Street trading covers a wide range of outdoor retail and catering activities undertaken in public streets. It includes familiar sights such as flower sellers, ice-cream vendors, fancy goods, souvenir stalls and a variety of hot and cold catering activities such as burger vans. It does not include the council’s markets which are covered under different regulations.

Earlier in 2024, we undertook a public engagement asking for thoughts and suggestions on our approach to how we manage and regulate street trading across West Suffolk. Street trading, if it is well managed, can be largely positive, creating opportunities for small businesses including start-ups, promoting choice and encouraging footfall The aim is to have a policy and level of regulation that is balanced, supporting local businesses and the sustainable growth of our economy while also serving the interests and safety of our residents and visitors.

What you said

Majority in favour of an approach whereby all street trading requires licensing consent from the council. This is later referred to as consent streets
The positives of street trading were highlighted as wider choice, offering opportunity for start-ups and small businesses, and encouraging footfall.
The negatives of street trading included waste (such as litter) and goods with unverified quality of goods and produce
A majority stated that they thought criminal checks should be carried out.

What we are now proposing

All qualifying streets (streets that are covered by the policy) in the district are designated as ‘consent streets'. This has the benefit of simplification, as well as easier application across the district.
Consent will adhere to ‘static’ (allowed to trade from maximum of four locations) or ‘mobile’ (trading from one place maximum of 30 minutes before moving to a new location a minimum of 50 meters away).
Organisers of commercial events or markets may put through a single street trading application to cover all of the traders that will be trading from the event.
All applicants will be subject to a basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check – however, a criminal record that involves sexual violence, especially involving children, or previous serious fraud charges, including the sale of counterfeit goods, will be immediately rejected. A criminal record involving other crimes will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
All consent licences have requirement to adhere to set standards - for example, on dealing with waste.

Proposed changes to fees

The council has also looked at what it would cost to administer the new policy such as the necessary checks to decide an application and the support related costs such as waste collection and enforcement. This is to ensure that the costs of street trading doesn’t place a burden on taxpayers. From that the council has calculated a fee of £409 per year for street traders (static or mobile).

To help support events across West Suffolk organisers of large events with multiple street traders will only need to make one application for each event and provide the council with details of traders, public liability insurance certification, and proof of food registration (where relevant) a maximum of seven days before the event is held.

This new fee is lower than some of our already licensed street traders pay currently and while the council acknowledges that there will be others who haven’t been paying anything due to the previous lack of regulation, the new policy, once adopted, will see a fair and consistent approached adopted for across the district.

The fee for a street consent variation (for example, to add additional sites) is £249.

Responsibility for licensing tables and chairs sits under separate, national legislation (Business and Planning Act). While these activities are licensed by West Suffolk Council, they are not covered by the Street Trading Policy.

Pavement licences to site tables and chairs outside a premises are covered by separate, national legislation, which was recently made permanent by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act increased fees for siting tables and chairs from a maximum of £100 to £350 for a renewal and £500 for a new application.

For a more detailed summary of the changes, please see the Summary of changes to the West Suffolk Council Street Trading Policy

The full draft policy can also be viewed at Draft West Suffolk Council Street Trading Policy.

Consultation

A public online consultation is being conducted on the draft policy between 9am 8 July and 5pm 5 August 2024. Anyone unable to take part online, can email licensing@westsuffolk.gov.uk or phone 01284 758050 to request a paper copy.

Please respond to the survey by completing the online form at: SmartSurvey - West Suffolk Council Street Trading Policy – Review and Consultation.