Public 'in some danger' warns councillor in call to review Luton council's environmental health department's resources

There are currently 1,976 registered food premises within the town subject to inspection for hygiene and standards compliance, according to a report to the borough council’s overview and scrutiny board.

A service plan setting out how LBC intends to deliver official food controls in 2025/26 was presented to the board. This identifies the resources available for food activities and explains how these will be prioritised during the year, said the report.

Luton Borough Council is required to prepare an annual food and feed law service plan in line with the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) framework agreement on food and feed law enforcement.

Food premises are risk rated for both food hygiene and food standards compliance. The risk rating sets the frequency of inspection.

Labour Central councillor Mohammed Yaqub Hanif said: “Have you seen the number of social media pages where people are booking cakes and savoury treats through the home, and is there scope for you to use some form of enforcement? The last thing we want is someone falling ill and being taken to hospital.”

LBC’s environmental health manager Rachel Humphreys explained: “There are some of these businesses which haven’t registered, but many have.

“It’s something the Food Standards Agency is working on nationally to ensure those operators are complying and register with the local authority.

“We get complaints from the public occasionally about unregistered businesses advertising on social media, which we follow up to make sure the business registers.”

Labour Saints councillor Ghulam Abbas said: “We’re seeing in certain parts of the town an increasing prevalence of pop-up temporary containers selling tea, spuds and so on.

“I wonder if they’re being regulated and monitored. Litter is an issue as people might eat nearby, discarding waste in the process, and sometimes there’s no bin there.”

LBC’s head of safer neighbourhoods Tony Stefano added: “They would be required to register, and would be inspected from a food safety and food hygiene perspective.

“Separate to that regime, we can engage with them using other officers from the service area if there are litter problems, such as the neighbourhood enforcement team.”

Conservative Poets councillor Aslam Khan told the board: “We want hygiene in washrooms as well, because I’ve noticed plenty of variation across the borough and I’m sure you’ve seen that too.

“Is there anything we can do to ensure the standards are consistent across the board?” he asked.

Ms Humphreys replied: “We look at the entire building when we inspect food premises, we look at the entire building, so the bathrooms are something we’ll consider.

“They’re checked during our routine inspections and we’ll highlight that to the business operator, if we notice problems.”

Liberal Democrat Barnfield councillor David Franks warned: “It’s clear the public is in some danger because the department isn’t resourced sufficiently to offer the right kind of protection that it should be.”

The board agreed the executive should conduct an immediate review of the service’s resources.