Before joining the Petrol Retailers Association, I spent 35 years ensuring the safety of petrol filling stations within London. During this time, I also implemented and managed 10 Primary Authority Partnerships (PAPs) that had influence over 25% of UK petrol filling stations. Having done this, I knew the benefit of providing such a service to members of the PRA.
PAP schemes have been in place since 2009 and, as of April this year, there are 16,350 business partnerships with 185 local authorities.
We have now signed a PAP deal with Hampshire County Council Trading Standards, which means members can hugely reduce the burden of Trading Standards compliance. And even though the deal is with Hampshire, all PRA members apart from those who only have sites in Northern Ireland can piggy-back on it. Under the arrangement, the PRA will act as co-ordinator between the member, their particular local authority and Hampshire County Council’s Trading Standards.
The PAP deal covers retailers for Age Restricted Products (ARP); Explosive Licensing (EXL); Fair Trading (FTR); Food Standards (FST); Metrology (MET); Petrol Storage (PST); and Product Safety (PSA).
And the good news is that PRA members are protected for free under the scheme as part of their PRA membership package.
This valuable new service provides members with the assurance that arrangements at their sites are compliant for any of the categories of legislation in which they choose to participate.
Additionally, it will give local authority enforcers confidence that the site operator intends to meet all the requirements of the legislation.
If any compliance problems arise, charges are based on a ’pay as you go’ hourly rate basis, which is £120 plus VAT.
The Partnership has legal standing under the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 (RESA).
To sign up to the scheme, please email either me at ray.blake@rmif.co.uk or Phil Monger at phil@psac@gmail.com
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