Trading Standards

We provide a comprehensive business advice service, which helps businesses to understand what the law requires of them and how to put that into practice.

We carry out enforcement work relating to fair trading matters. Our remit is broad and includes:

• Rogue traders
• Money laundering
• Pressure selling
• False claims
• Mis-descriptions
• Counterfeiting
• Illegal tobacco

This work tackles the criminals or those who deliberately flout rules to ensure a level playing field for legitimate businesses. We want consumer confidence in UK businesses to remain high.

• Report an issue to Trading Standards
• Visit our Community Protection pages - learn how to keep yourself and your community safe from rogue traders and scams

We are the lead enforcement body when it comes to safety issues with products sold to consumers. Our work in this area combines:

• Proactive, intelligence-led projects to identify product safety issues
• Reactive work responding to product safety issues reported to us by the public and other authorities

If you are a consumer and would like to find out more about product safety and current campaigns, please visit the sale of dangerous goods page.

If you are a business and would like to find out more about your responsibilities and obligations and to access our advice services, please visit our product safety page.

We carry out intelligence-led weights and measures work to ensure the accuracy of scales and measures used in a commercial setting. We also fulfil service requests such as weighbridge verification.

For all metrology based service requests, please email tstand@peterborough.gov.uk.

We carry out an annual inspection regime in relation to food premises, such as:

• Producers
• Importers
• Retailers
• Catering establishments

We look at every aspect of food standards including:

• Composition
• Labelling
• Claims
• Allergens
• Weight

We also investigate high numbers of allegations and referrals relating to food standards breaches, including:

• Incorrect allergens labelling or information
• Inaccurate descriptions
• Inaccurate date marking

For more information, visit our food standards page. You can also request bespoke business compliance advice.

We have an inspection regime that looks at every aspect of the food chain:

• Feed fed to livestock - its composition, suitability, storage, transportation
• Medicine records - ensuring that veterinary medicines don't enter the human food chain through the meat that we consume
• Checking only appropriately aged animals go through the abattoirs
• Ensuring meat sold through butchers and supermarkets has accurate labelling - e.g. weight, composition, origin, description

Visit our animal health and welfare page
Visit our food standards page
Visit our animal feed registration page

Animal disease

Our inspection regime ensures owners of livestock comply with all disease control measures. This limits the impact of an animal disease outbreak such as Foot and Mouth, enabling movements of infected animals to be traced and the disease to be contained.

Animal disease contingency plans enable us to lockdown disease rapidly.

Bringing pets into the UK / pet travel

We are responsible for dealing with animals illegally entering the country without the relevant disease vaccinations. Most frequently puppies imported from Eastern Europe.

We are required to seize the animals and place them in quarantine until they are safe to return to their owner or be re-homed. Rabies is the greatest concern.

Visit our animal health and welfare page

Our obligations don't just apply to people. We are responsible for ensuring that farmers uphold the welfare of their livestock. Our inspection programme looks to:

• Identify breaches of the law
• Provide a rapid response protocol for welfare issues reported to us

In recent years, we have come across some appalling cases of neglect and have taken several prosecutions.

Visit our animal health and welfare page.

We are responsible for issuing safety certificates at sports grounds. Our officers carry out periodic inspections at each of the regulated grounds. We also convene Safety Advisory Groups with a range of partners to discuss the necessary safety requirements:

• Police (resilience and operational)
• Fire Service (resilience and operational)
• Ambulance
• Building Control
• Environmental Health
• Highways
• Venue representatives

Visit our sports ground safety page.

Explosives

We are responsible for licensing every premises in Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Rutland that stores and sells explosives (fireworks for use by the public).

Before issuing a licence, we inspect the storage to check:

• Safety of the container
• Whether the fireworks are legal in the UK
• Check effective systems are in place for age verification

Apply for a licence to store explosives and fireworks

Petroleum

We are also responsible for licensing every petrol station in Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Rutland. This national licensing regime exists due to the public safety risk from large quantities of flammable fuel.

Apply for a petroleum storage certificate