Walsall councillor slams 'disgraceful’ dirty food business owners
‘Disgraceful’ food business owners in Walsall who put people’s lives at risk have prompted renewed calls to make ‘scores on the doors’ compulsory.
Councillor Garry Perry, Walsall Council’s deputy leader for resilient communities, said forcing operators to publicly display their food hygiene ratings could stop poor practice in some businesses.
And he called on the Food Safety Agency to focus on the issue instead of imposing ‘bureaucratic regulations’ on local authorities.
Councillor Perry presented the Food Law Enforcement Service Plan at a meeting of Walsall Council’s cabinet on Wednesday.
He said more than 1,600 businesses across Walsall registered have a satisfactory or higher – three to five star – rating for food hygiene.
But he added five businesses had been taken to court and temporarily shut down due to infestations of rats, mice and cockroaches.
Councillor Perry said: “Who would want to buy or purchase food from premises with that sort of operation in place? Nobody, I hope.
“That is sometimes what we are faced with when our officers go into some of these premises.
However, I wish the Food Safety Agency will pay as much attention to making the ‘scores on the doors’ mandatory.
“They put in lots of burdensome bureaucratic regulations on local authorities instead of dealing with something which, in my opinion, would actually deal with a lot of these exceptions overnight.
“I’d like to think the vast majority of the public would know if that’s a ‘zero to three’ rating you’d think twice about going in them. I’m not saying boycott them but the onus should be on the business operator.
“It’s the only way we’ll get some of these rogues who think it’s fit to allow cockroaches to breed in a food premise and to allow rats to go unnoticed and unchecked with their faeces that lays across counters where they prepare raw and fresh food, thinking they’ll get away with it and putting the public at risk.
“People have died from this nationally, as they have from incorrectly labelled food and as they have from counterfeit goods. All these things impact on people’s lives.
“Every time we have this debate, I always say the same - ‘let’s fire off a letter to the Food Safety Agency’ asking for this to be mandated. We will keep up the pressure.
“We’ll continue to push that. The serious side to all this is the public health risk associated with these disgraceful business owners who, to me, are as bad as the fly-tippers who treat us with contempt.”
