There has been a recent article
in the Daily Express partly blaming health and safety bosses for the demise of
the ice cream vans.
The article states that Councils
have put the ice cream sellers into meltdown by banning vans from certain areas
because of concerns about childhood obesity. Other authorities have limited how
long vans can sound their chimes over concerns about noise pollution.
The Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) chair Judith Hackitt has responded with an article headed Don't use health and safety as an excuse to
give us a licking, where she commented that she felt they were taking the
blame for over protective parents, child obesity, noisy jingles and bad
weather.
It is clear that Britain’s ice
cream vans are stalling their way into a winter of discontent and towards an
uncertain future in which they face becoming as endangered as milk floats. However
not all of which can be blamed on health and safety regulations.
Long list of expenses for ice
cream sellers including insurance and trade licences together with soaring
petrol prices have helped drive a flake into the heart of an industry already
on its knees.
Stuart
Whitby, managing director of Whitby Morrison, the UKs largest manufacturer of
ice cream vans has said “Street vending has dramatically changed. Supermarkets
are selling ice cream far more cheaply than ice cream vans can, every corner
shop and garage forecourt has an ice cream freezer.”
In my
view, taking the above into account, it is clear a number of factors have
affected this particular trade and the blame cannot simply be put on the HSE. What
we need to bear in mind, is that although your average ice cream vendor is
struggling with his trade, many other industries are in the same position.
Families might not have thought twice about buying their children an ice cream
in the boom times, but now with most peoples finances having taken a whipping,
they are thinking twice.
Mofozzul Hussain (Solicitor/Office Manager)
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