In their continued effort to beat the spread of coronavirus, Barking and Dagenham Council’s enforcement team visited nearly 2,500 businesses last week to make sure they are following the latest Covid regulations.

 

The visits also included checking in on a total of another 1,056 businesses to make sure they were closed as they are not classed as essential. 

 

Of those visited, 265 were not compliant, which meant they were not enforcing social distancing rules, letting too many people in or not having the correct signage in place.

 

However, the majority of the rule breaking was down to people either not wearing a face covering and the council continues to remind residents that it isn’t just the responsibility of the shop to tell them to wear one. Residents should always wear a face covering, which covers their mouth and nose, in an enclosed space, unless they’re exempt.

 

The council will always try and work with businesses, so that they can stay open and will do this by providing advice, signage for shop window and will even spraying social distancing lines on the floor.

 

However, if businesses continue to not follow the rules, council enforcement officers will take action and hand out prohibition notices, like they did to five businesses last week. 

 

Councillor Margaret Mullane, Cabinet Member for Enforcement and Community Safety said: “I’m really pleased that the majority of businesses are following the rules set in place. I know this is a really hard time for all and I appreciate everything businesses are doing to help stop the spread of the virus.

 

“For those businesses that continue to break the rules, please do listen to our enforcement officers and marshals as we will take action if we have to.”

 

Residents can report a business breaking the rules.