I need your help.
Last Monday whilst driving the Truck to our usual stops, I was stopped by the Hackney Council Street Safety by the Pembury estate and given an anti social behaviour warning. The £50/day street trading licence pitch fee is unmanageable for us - so we hadn’t been paying it. If we had been, we’d have had to close the business.
Our margins aren’t high because we focus on being ethical AND affordable, and that we pay drivers London Living Wage and that last mile grocery just is expensive - which means we don't yet make a profit anyway let alone if they gobbled a chunk of our revenue on licensing fees - and so I made a conscious (but uneasy) decision not to pay for the licence. The anxiety around this eats at me almost every day.
Meetings with Hackney Council had got us nowhere - the thinking across departments is not joined up at the moment. I’ve argued the case part of the licensing pitch fee is to cover waste management and market management - neither of which we need. The council isn’t providing a service to us as such, whilst we are contributing to the Climate Action Plan, waste and recycling and Net Zero targets, as well as building more connected communities.
How you can help
The officer suggested gathering signatures to show community support. We need your help to continue trading.
I am hoping that you, as supporters of the zero waste movement, will please take a couple of seconds to add your signatures - and circulate this to your friends and neighbours. This could help us (and other mobile refill shops in the future) get special free or affordable street trading licences. We have seen new licences get created in special cases like the ice cream van licence in 1990, so there is a precedent.
Help us and other mobile refill shops to operate freely, and save us from having to close down.
Please show your support by signing the form below.
Once we have gathered signatures we will send to council members so that they can build a case for a new street trading licence for businesses like ours.
Your email and details will only be used for the purpose of the petition and we will not share this information with anyone else or use your data to for any other purposes.
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