Trading Standards
The Trading Standards Service comes under the remit of Bedford
Borough Council.
What we
do
Key
areas of work
Trading Standards
Approved
Trading Standards Approved List of
Members
Analytical
Laboratory
Contact
us
What we do
Buying goods and services plays an important part in the
everyday lives of Bedford Borough residents. The Trading Standards
Service aims to create a fair and safe trading environment
for consumers and honest businesses and ensure compliance with
a wide range of UK and European legislation by:
- being accessible, responsive and
innovative
- dealing effectively with non
compliance;
- informing, educating and advising;
and
- a commitment to service
excellence
We aim to be customer focused, giving consumers the protection they
need and want, quickly, and, providing better services to business,
including protection from unfair and illegal competition.
We are committed to preventing non-compliance and encouraging
good practice by offering advice and information to both consumers
and business. We can help consumers by giving civil law advice and
assist traders by advising them on how to comply with the laws that
affect their businesses.
We undertake investigative, monitoring and enforcement work in a
wide range of areas relevant to the consumers and businesses of
Bedford Borough.
Bedford Trading Standards are responsible for the enforcement of
legislation controlling the advertising, marketing, distribution
and supply of goods and services throughout the manufacturing,
importation and service delivery chain. This includes the
enforcement of laws that control the accuracy, description, price,
quality, quantity, and safety of goods and services covering such
matters as:
- Petroleum and Explosives
Licensing
- Product Counterfeiting
- False or misleading
Descriptions
- Property Mis-descriptions
- Unsafe Goods
- Agricultural Products
- Weights and Measures
- Age Restricted Sales
- Animal Health and Welfare
- Consumer Credit
- Targeting Rogue Traders
- Food Standards
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Key Areas of Work
- investigating criminal breaches of Trading
Standards law ensuring products are safe to use
- ensuring food is safe to consume, meets
quality standards and is adequately and honestly
described—including a state-of-the-art analytical
laboratory
- helping to ensure that claims made about
products and services are accurate
- preventing the manufacture and sale of
counterfeit goods
- targeting enforcement at rogue traders and
anti-competitive practices
- consumer credit
- property descriptions used by estate
agents
- preventing sales of age restricted
products, such as cigarettes and alcohol to minors
- animal health and welfare
- animal feeding stuffs
- licensing: animal movements; sale of
fireworks etc.
- testing weighing and measuring equipment
used in trade, e.g. petrol pumps
- ensuring vehicle servicing and repairs are
adequately performed
- electronic trading, i.e. the
Internet
- consumer education
- Trading Standards Approved
Scheme
- No Cold Calling Zones
- Financial Investigations
- advice to consumers on their civil rights,
via Consumer Direct regional call centre
Bedford’s Trading Standards Service is based at Town Hall,
Bedford with a testing and analytical laboratory at Gadsby
Street, Bedford.
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Trading Standards Approved
Trading Standards Approved is run by Bedford Borough
Council Trading Standards Service. The aim of the scheme is to
improve business standards and increase customer confidence in
member businesses. Approved businesses have agreed to abide by the
terms and conditions of the scheme and have been checked by Trading
Standards to ensure compliance.
Each year the Trading Standards Service receives
thousands of complaints about local businesses. The scheme is
a positive move to improve the way in which traders deal with
consumers. There is no place in it for rogue traders who do not
care for customer satisfaction or compliance with the law.
What is in it for you, the trader?
- independent recognition of your business
standards.
- Potential for increased business with
consumers encouraged to use local traders.
- TSA membership certificate for display and
use of the scheme’s logo.
- Pre-entry vetting to make sure your
business meets the scheme’s high standards.
- Promotion of your company as a TSA
business with your company name on the Trading Standards Approved
list and on the Borough Council’s website with a hotlink to your
company website.
- Improved consumer confidence in your
business or service.
What's in it for you, the consumer?
Consumers can check with Trading Standards to see which
businesses are members of the scheme before purchasing goods or
services.
The scheme is voluntary. By joining the scheme businesses are
demonstrating a commitment to customer care and fair-trading.
Trading Standards will continue to work closely with scheme
members, and will carry out monitoring exercises to help make sure
high standards are maintained.
For more comprehensive information about the
scheme, including how to join, terms and conditions,
performance reports, and so on, please visit out TSA
webpage.
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Trading Standards Approved List of Members
For a complete list of traders approved by Bedford
Borough TSA scheme, please click on the link below.
Please note! The complete list is 29 pages long, so
we strongly suggest you copy the category of traders in which you
have a current interest and paste them into a seperate
document before printing.
Trading
Standards Approved List of Members
For a list of those traders approved by the Central
Bedfordshire Council's TSA Scheme, please visit the
TSA page of their website.
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Contact us
Consumer Direct
If you are a consumer and have issue with any
trader, please contact Consumer Direct.
Consumer advice and information in Bedford is
now provided by Consumer Direct - Eastern Region. Consumer
Direct is a telephone and online consumer advice service that is
supported by local authorities and the Office of Fair Trading.
To contact Consumer Direct, please call on 08454 04 05
06
(Minicom users should call 08451 28 13
84).
To e-mail Consumer Direct, please visit:
Consumer
Direct email form (new window)
A wide range of consumer information and advice is also
available online from the Consumer Direct website at
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/
(new window)
The advice and information they give is free
and you can call as many times as you need to. Telephone calls are
charged for via the 0845 number, which will cost no more than 4p
per minute for BT customers (other networks may vary).
For business advice and all other enquiries within the
Bedford Borough Council area, please contact:
Environental Health & Trading Standards
Service
Bedford Borough Council
Town Hall, St. Paul's Square
Bedford MK40 1SJ
Telephone:
(01234) 227 487 — General Enquiries
OR
(01234) 227 270 — TSA; Licensing; Animal Health; Explosives;
Petroleum; Poisons
Fax: (01234) 227 242
Email: business@bedford.gov.uk
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