{"id":662305,"date":"2025-12-30T10:56:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T10:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662305\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T10:56:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T10:56:15","slug":"serious-risk-to-public-health-as-bristol-food-venues-overdue-hygiene-inspection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662305\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Serious risk to public health’ as Bristol food venues overdue hygiene inspection"},"content":{"rendered":"

The delay is partly due to a shortage of staffAdam Postans<\/strong><\/a> Local democracy reporter, Alex Seabrook<\/strong> and Local Democracy Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

05:00, 30 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

\"'Serious‘Serious risk to public health’ due to overdue food hygiene inspections (Image: Photo_Concepts \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

A backlog of food hygiene inspections of Bristol caf\u00e9s, restaurants, shops and pubs is improving despite a shortage of city council staff.<\/p>\n

The local authority has only a third of the permanent employees it needs to carry out the checks, according to an annual report.<\/p>\n

But a group of “phenomenal” apprentices is making up the gap while the council tries to recruit more workers, director of public health<\/a> Christina Gray said.<\/p>\n

A report in September 2024 revealed one in 10 food businesses in the city had not been inspected for more than two years.<\/p>\n

Most of problems stem back to the covid pandemic, with 1,000 outlets having not been inspected since opening as of March 2022, while 3,000 more were overdue a visit, of which one-third had never undergone one, creating a “serious risk to public health”.<\/p>\n

The annual report said: ” Bristol City Council<\/a> is being monitored by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) on its food inspections due to having insufficient qualified staff (7 are funded, 14 required).<\/p>\n

“There is a national shortage of qualified food inspectors and we are working with the FSA on mitigation plans, which includes our apprenticeship programme, proposed probationary posts and use of agency staff.<\/p>\n

“There may be future financial implications associated with any increased employee costs should staffing numbers be increased.”<\/p>\n

There are about 4,700 registered food businesses in Bristol. The report said council officials focused on the highest risk premises.<\/p>\n

The team inspected 2,181 in 2024\/25, of which 98 per cent were found to be compliant either then or after a revisit.<\/p>\n

Ms Gray said: “The apprentices are phenomenal. They are fantastic. It’s a brilliant scheme, it recruits young people or people from non-traditional backgrounds.<\/p>\n

“They end up with a degree, a professional qualification and they’re fantastically skilled. They’ve been a fantastic addition. The apprentice scheme is a brilliant investment in the city.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The delay is partly due to a shortage of staffAdam Postans Local democracy reporter, Alex Seabrook and Local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,3893,748,3374,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-662305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-city-council","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-employment","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115808159958828335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}