TRANSPORT AND ENVIRONMENT
Oldham made waves with its plans to charge takeaways a flat fee – dubbed a ‘fat tax’ – to pay for anti-litter and public health
campaigns.Councillor Rod Blyth explains.
O
ldham Metropolitan Borough Council is pioneering a new ap-
proach to takeaways – charging them for the damage they do to public health and the quality of our streets through dropped litter.
If approved by the Government, it wants to use planning laws to bring in a £1,000 flat charge on new takeaways to pay for litter cleaning and healthy eating campaigns, as well as to try to prompt takeaways to of- fer healthier options and promote them properly.
Councillor Rod Blyth, cabinet member for community safety and public protection, told PSE: “It’s come about through plan- ning, rather than a deliberate attempt to institute a ‘fat tax’. We still have to see if we can do it, because it has to be examined nationally first, but we’re planning to put a Section 106 requirement of £1,000 on new takeaways, with the money going towards litter control and the rest to be used for promoting healthy eating campaigns.”
Everything from fish and chip shops to ke- bab houses would be hit, alongside some household names – depending on whether their premises were defined in planning terms as takeaways rather than primarily seated restaurants.
The council is also trying to clamp down on takeaways by limiting their concentra- tion in town centres, banning more than two opening next to each other, and stop- ping them opening anywhere near schools. Some premises, such as smoothie bars and cafes, would escape the measures if they can prove they offer and promote healthy options.
38 | public sector executive Mar/Apr 11
Blyth said: “There have been all sorts of ideas flying about. A lot of takeaways do healthy options, but don’t promote them, and we want them to promote those – per- haps through better signage, and so on.
“We’re hoping, if we’re allowed by the Government to do it, to implement it as soon as possible. But it’s not guaranteed, as technically we’re using planning gain for health issues. It’s got a bit out of hand really, considering the coverage it’s had; it started off as one line in a 50-page report, on using this money to promote healthy eating campaigns, and that’s what we’ve tasked our officers with doing.”
Oldham alone has around 250 takeaway establishments already and the council expects to hear whether it can press ahead with the plans, already approved internal- ly, in September.
The councillor advised: “If we get more people joining in, more councils and health authorities, it will put a lot of pressure on Government to agree.
“It would affect all takeaways, which are defined clearly in planning law, as op- posed to restaurants. It would only be for new ones rather than existing ones, but it would also kick in against those putting in planning variations.
“We’d be working with our health col- leagues, and hopefully getting the rest of the takeaways to join in.
“We have had complaints about the number of takeaways, especially in the town centre. Some of them become dead streets during the day because they’re just
bars and takeaways. They are not usually open during the day, and the more you get, the more it adds to the residential flight away from those streets, and it spirals. It’s no good; we need a viable daytime econo- my, and to give the district more viability. We’ve been killing some of our town cen- tres in this country with takeaways.”
While popular with health professionals, the proposals have hit more of a stumbling block locally, with public opinion not ex- actly onside.
Blyth explained: “We have had feedback – for example, Radio Lancashire ran a poll that came out very strongly in favour of not putting this on. People were saying ‘if I want a takeaway, I’ll have one’; they don’t want to pay extra or for the takea- ways to pay extra. But we’re not stopping people having takeaways, we just want to promote healthy eating.
“If you look at Oldham in particular, one in ten of our children aged 10-11 is obese. That’s no good and we’ve got to do some- thing about it. It’s a national problem. Takeaways don’t help. We have a lot of dialogue with our local NHS organisa- tions and this is being discussed. They’re on board with this. They’re all for seeing if we can promote this and put money into healthy eating campaigns and get- ting these takeaways to promote those healthier options.”
Rod Blyth
FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit
www.oldham.gov.uk
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