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Rick Daniow has surveyed 30 local authorities and found Wokingham charges the most of any of them for an ice cream van licence
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Ice cream man's fury at borough's high licence fee

By Jon Nurse
February 22, 2013

An ice cream man is fed up of watching his profits melt away after forking out thousands on council fees to sell lollies across the borough.

Rick Daniow, pictured right, has paid more than £13,000 in fees in the last six years but is fuming after discovering some councils don’t charge for a trading licence. He is now calling for an investigation into what is pushing up the charge, which stands at £2,400 this year, after a personal survey of 30 councils found Wokingham to be one of the most expensive.

“It goes up every year with inflation,” Mr Daniow, of Bathurst Road, Winnersh, said. “I’ve compared a list of various councils from Edinburgh right down to the south coast and eight I looked at don’t charge anything at all. In Reading it’s under £800. It won’t take them more than £2,000 of work to sort the licence. It’s ridiculous. It’s more than 10 times what they charge for a taxi licence.”

The 61-year-old has been selling ice creams between Winnersh and Finchampstead for more than 20 years and has been stung by the charge since the council adopted the Local Government and Miscellaneous Provisions Act in 2000.

“It’s most of my profit gone,” he explained. “I’m working for three to four months of the year for practically nothing. I’ve not had a holiday for three years.

“I know a lot of people [across the country] are throwing in the towel and giving up. It’s a terrible shame because it’s a delightful job. You meet some smashing people.”

Mr Daniow said his research found licence charges were especially higher in Berkshire than the rest of the country – with Windsor, Maidenhead and Slough the worst at around £3,000. He added that after six years of asking, the council still refuses to reveal how the amount is calculated.

Trading Standards services is shared between Wokingham Borough Council and West Berkshire Council, with plans to offer a half price six-month trading licence from April.

Brian Leahy, of West Berkshire and Wokingham environmental health and licensing service, said: “Street trading fees are set having taken into consideration all costs associated with the consultation, inspection and grant of the licence as well as monitoring and control of licensed operators and the investigation into allegations of persons trading without consent.

“And in some cases the collection of refuse, street cleansing and other services rendered by the council to the licence holder.”

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Someone had to sit down and come up with those ridiculous rules for ice cream salesman, think about that. It's crazy.

Also, how on earth do you ever enforce a law like that? It's completely stupid.

Megaman
22/02/2013 at 10:26

Up until 2012, the law and code of practice limited the chimes to midday to 7pm (Section 62 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974), for no more than 4 seconds every 3 minutes, not played while stationary, within 50m of a school or church, or within sight of another van, or more than once every 2 hours in the same street ("Code of Practice on Noise from Ice-Cream Van Chimes Etc. 1982").

However, these were in line to be scrapped by our current government under the "Red Tape Challenege". I'm not sure if they were; it doesn't look like it.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/publications/files/pb13704-ice-cream-vans.pdf

mavdo, Wokingham
22/02/2013 at 10:20

Why should there be a curfew? If someone wants an ice cream in the evening they should be able to have one.

It sounds very Soviet to ban someone just cos you don't want your kids to have an ice cream, which of course is your parenting choice.

I personally think the snobs at Wokingham don't like the idea of something as common as an ice cream van and so try to price people out.

Megaman
22/02/2013 at 10:08

Ah - so that is the ice cream van I can hear at about 8pm in Winnersh every night in summer and winter! I have sympathy that there is such inconsistency and it is something where there should just be a standard cost across the country, however, my sympathy is eroded slightly by having to explain to my kids at 8pm or later that they are not going outside for an ice cream! There should be some sort of curfew in residential areas.