Ice cream vans face licence crackdown
Worcester targets unlicensed traders, including ice cream sellers and dog businesses.
Ice cream vans face licence crackdown
Worcester City Council is stepping up action against illegal ice cream vans and dog businesses.
Dog day care businesses and ice cream vans are among the traders being examined as enforcement officers clamp down on unlicensed activity in Worcester.
Intelligence is also being collected on cafes, pubs and other businesses that put tables and chairs on public pavements without the necessary permission.
Worcester city councillor Richard Udall said he had received "almost weekly emails" about ice cream sellers operating without licences.
"The other one that concerns me greatly, mostly because I use them, is doggy day care centres," he told a meeting of the council's licensing and environmental health committee. "There are so many being advertised and many are not licensed."
Speaking about unlicensed dog businesses, he added: "People don't realise how risky it is to allow your dog to be looked after by somebody who isn't qualified, isn't trained, doesn't have a licence and almost certainly doesn't have insurance."
Kiran Lahel, licensing support services manager at Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), said officers were using intelligence gathered from complaints to build evidence and direct enforcement activity.
She told councillors WRS had carried out two operations targeting illegal dog breeders across Worcestershire and said the illegal trade was worth millions of pounds.
"We've tried to do things with street trading before and they haven't quite worked, so this is an area we need to look at, but we need the evidence to do that," she said.
"Ice cream sellers tend to be the biggest one with street trading.
"At the moment we're focusing on pavement licensing, trying to get people to get their licence, then street trading will be the next one."
A council report said Worcester currently had 16 mobile and static street trading licences.
It added officers have dealt with several unlicensed traders this year, sending warning letters to two and stopping another from trading.
The report said complaints about ice cream sellers rose during the summer and that officers were working with the intelligence team, parking enforcement officers and police to tackle the issue.