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'Get priorities right' on weights and measures
Senior Conservatives have called on
local authorities across the country to resist Government pressure to
crackdown on traders who fail to comply with EU metric
rules.
Earlier this year, the Local Government Association, then
chaired by the Labour Party, sent out a "public protection bulletin" to
all councils across the country instructing them to prosecute shopkeepers
serving customers in imperial weights and measures.
But
Conservative Group Leader on the LGA, Cllr Peter Chalke has warned that
far more important issues require attention. He said: "Trading Standards
Officers need to concentrate efforts into the areas that most effectively
protect and advise the public. I personally do not think that the
prosecution of traders who continue to use imperial measures can ever be
one of those priorities."
Mr Chalke added: "We have all read in the
newspapers recently the cases brought against traders. These cases,
although technically enforcing the law, hardly have public support and
often harm the credibility of local government."
He said: "Local
government is facing budgetary pressures from all directions and it seems
somewhat absurd that public money has to be used to bring these sorts of
cases. Local authorities have to obey the law, but you really have to
question whether this law is just another example of the stupid and
irrelevant regulations coming out of the EU at present."
12/07/2004 |
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