Hartlepool Borough Council

Although Hartlepool Borough Council has Port Health Authority status there are currently no imported foods or feed arriving at Hartlepool Docks. The authority has a documented system in place to monitor the ongoing situation and is in regular contact with the port operators.

The authority has recently updated its quality procedures in relation to imported food and feed law controls, and had also implemented some new procedures to take account of recent changes in legislation, in particular those relating to feed hygiene inspections.

The authority has no major food or feed importers and a limited number of premises which require feed law enforcement activities. However, it was clear that the authority had been proactively identifying relevant feed business premises and carried out some inspections.

A risk-based feed sampling programme had also been implemented and the food sampling programme had taken into account Agency’s advice that 10% of samples should be food imported from outside of the European Union.

The authority had been unable to submit statistical monitoring returns for its imported food and feed law enforcement activities to the Agency due to database problems. However, the IT software had been recently upgraded and the authority was confident it could now submit the returns