Towns where restaurants had NO food checks by watchdogs

WATCHDOGS are failing to carry out vital food sampling and hygiene checks in restaurants, takeaways and other outlets, putting the public in danger.

Research found that 33 councils had done no food standards sampling tests over the past year, which means businesses could be getting away with selling meat and other products that are not what they appear.

It also means that the restaurants and other outlets might be selling foods with potentially deadly allergens, such as nuts, without declaring it.

In addition, six of the councils did no food hygiene checks, which means dirty, rat-infested businesses could be selling risky meals with little chance of being caught. The alarming revelations come in an investigation by ITV’s Tonight programme, which suggests that much of Britain no longer has an effective regime for policing food standards and hygiene.

The six councils which did no sampling in the past year were the tourist hotspot of Blackpool, which has 1,500 food outlets, the city of Liverpool, St Helens, Windsor and Maidenhead, Richmond upon Thames, and Waltham Forest. The national watchdog, the Food Standards Agency, which is responsible for preventing a repeat of the horsemeat scandal of 2013, gave councils no money to fund food sampling in 2017-18.

Yet in 2013-14 the agency gave councils £2.2million for testing in response to revelations that horsemeat was being sold as beef in supermarket burgers and ready meals. Professor Chris Elliott, who led the official inquiry into the horsemeat scandal, warned that councils do not have the staff to carry out the food inspections needed to protect the public.

Professor Elliott, from Queen’s University, Belfast, said: ‘The lack of funding for environmental health inspectors and trading standards officers is extremely worrying.’

Simon Blackburn, the Local Government Association’s spokesman on food, told the programme: ‘Local authority budgets have essentially been halved since 2010. The number of trading standards officers we employ across the UK is around half of what it was in 2010.’

Mr Blackburn is also council leader in Blackpool, which has more takeaways per head of population than anywhere else in the UK yet failed to carry out any food sampling and hygiene tests last year. Asked about this, he said the council takes a risk-based approach to food safety and targets outlets it believes may be misleading the public or putting people in danger.

Michael Jackson, of the Food Standards Agency, told the programme that food safety is a top priority for the watchdog.

‘We’re confident that we’re doing a good job, but we’re not complacent, and we’re looking to further improve the system,’ he said.

÷ITV Tonight, What’s In Our Meat?, is being shown at 7.30pm today on ITV1.