It makes good business sense to treat your customers well. There are laws governing fair-trading, which companies should be aware of and follow.

Your local authority will operate trading Standard services and enforce the laws and regulations concerning goods and services available.

If you are a business operating in Knowsley, than Knowsley Councils trading standards team are responsible for enforcing a range of laws on areas such as weights and measures, trade descriptions, consumer credit and product safety. They can also inspect trade premises within Knowsley to ensure they are compliant with laws.

The trading standards team carries out a range of services in five core areas:

This is principally concerned with the testing of weighing and measuring equipment such as shop scales, petrol pumps and spirit optics for accuracy and the checking of packaged goods to ensure that the quantities declared are within permitted tolerances.

This area covers a wide variety of issues including ensuring that all goods for retail sale are accurately priced, advertisements and descriptions applied to goods or services are accurate and that counterfeit products are prohibited.

Our work in this area is about ensuring that compositional standards in relation food standards, fertilisers and animal feedingstuffs are met and that their labelling and advertising and associated nutritional claims are accurate.

This area concerns regulation of the marketplace to ensure that goods available to the public comply with relevant safety standards. Such goods include: toys, gas appliances, electrical items, personal protective equipment and motorcars although this list is by no means exhaustive.

The service offers advice and assistance to consumers in exercising their rights in relation to the marketplace and to traders in terms of their legal obligations. The service has gained a Community Legal Service Quality Mark and in conjunction with other advice providers in the Borough is part of Knowsley’s Consumer Support Network

For further information please contact:

Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Environmental Health and Consumer Protection Team, Municipal Buildings, Cherryfield Drive, Kirkby, Knowsley, Merseyside, L32 1TX.

Telephone: 0151 443 4737