Food safety standards are on the up across Bradford, according to an environmental health boss.

Latest statistics compiled by Bradford Council’s environmental health team reveal 59 of the last 150 businesses across the district to undergo a food safety inspection achieved the maximum five stars.

Only six businesses, all in Bradford, recorded no stars at all.

Joanne Housley, environmental health manager at the Council, said the statistics reflect a move towards improving food safety standards.

“The general trend has been an increase in the number of five stars,” she said. “There’s been no magic one thing that I could suggest to put it down to. It’s the continued work of the team in terms of helping and assisting businesses and helping them achieve compliance, and the other end of the spectrum is it’s maybe been enforcement in some cases to ensure compliance.

“Also, some time ago now, we ran courses to help some of the businesses that had lower stars improve their star rating, so we could be seeing a knock-on effect from that now they’re getting visited.”

The ratings of the last 150 business to be inspected, between Friday, April 15, and Tuesday, May 31, are on the Council’s Scores on the Doors website. They reveal a range of food outlets inspected, including restaurants, takeaways, burger vans, supermarkets, schools and churches.

In total, the environmental health team has 2,312 businesses to inspect and Mrs Housley said they are all scored using the same system.

“The basis is good hygiene, which is the people and the practices and simple things like wearing protective clothing,” she said.

"Then there’s standards of cleanliness, like good cleaning and being free from pests and is the structure in a good condition, and then finally confidence in the structure of the management and that is around staff training and instruction.

“I think the public do say ‘if they’re so poor why aren’t they shut’, but that’s not often the case. There are criteria for when we can close a business, but they might be just complying with the legislation.

“Where they are on zero stars or a very low rating, it will be a combination of advice, assistance and enforcement action. We have a range of enforcement actions from notice to prosecution.”

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