Mobile street traders, such as ice cream, coffee and sandwich vans might soon have to get a licence from Swindon Borough Council to be able to trade here.

The authority’s licensing committee will consider a proposed new street trading policy, which will bring in the need for consent for such traders.

It says: “Currently the policy does not require a mobile street trader as requiring consent. Benchmarking against other local authorities’ policies it was identified that the council’s policy fell silent on the regulation of mobile street traders such as ice cream vans, coffee vans, fish and chip vans etc.

“It is proposed to include such traders within the new policy to ensure a fair, proportionate, consistent approach is applied.”

If mobile traders are required to get council consent, the policy says it would be fair to treat them differently to other street traders like market stalls: “The council recognises that, for example, a mobile trader such as an Ice cream van will operate differently to a trader at a local market.”

One of the conditions of the consent, if the new policy is adopted is that vans may only trade for 30 minutes at a time in any one location, and they must not return within two hours.

Exemptions to both conditions are allowed if “a good reason” is supplied by the trader when they request an exemption.

The licensing committee will meet at 6pm on Tuesday, December 3 at the civic offices in Euclid Street. Members of the public are entitled to attend.

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