Trading Standards - News and Events

Recent Events

Garden Safe Event - Held at Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Centre - 26th March 2009

The Garden Safe event was the idea of MTCBC’s Trading Standards Service; we have a responsibility to encourage a fair and safe trading environment for the people of Merthyr Tydfil and the visitors to the Authority. Raising the publics’ awareness of general safety works alongside our role as law enforcers; we feel prevention is always better than cure!

This idea was a new attempt to publicise the need to check electrical garden equipment prior to their use in the “growing season” in April and May. Rather than invite people to call into our offices to have a free safety check we thought we’d broaden our idea and link this task to a garden awareness day with a guest speaker and exhibitors who had a connection and shared ideas on encouraging people of all ages to lead a healthier and safer lifestyle, this is one of the Corporate Objectives of the Authority.

We spoke to one gardening group in Cefn Coed, in turn they provided us with names of individuals who were either linked to other gardening clubs or may know a friend of a friend and so on. We then found small groups of individuals who share a common aims, “Green Fingers” in Treharris are a group who tend local Chapels gardens and other public sites as a hobby, they were keen to attend as they had no funding to organize publicity. We then contacted charities who were either looking to start projects in the Authority or were already helping residents. Once we had invited the right mix of exhibitors we needed a venue.

The Merthyr Tydfil Leisure Centre is our brand new state of the art venue; it offers excellent facilities to all and has free parking and easy access, they were more than happy to provide all the help we needed in staging the event. We were able to use the main sports hall and catering was provided by their staff on site.

We had visitors from neighbouring authorities and one family from Hereford who had come specially to see Terry after being informed by a relative.

On the day we had expected to receive around 150 visitors, by 11am we had been visited by over 150 people most of which had not made a prearrange booking, we estimate 230 people actually called in. This was an excellent number and included many people who had been using the sports facilities and been “encouraged” by our “meter and greeter” at the main entrance to call in. One Mr. Matthews stated “I popped in for a swim at 10am and I’m still here at 4pm”!

We had two one hour talks with Terry at 11.30 and 2.30 and two cooking demonstrations with Tastebuddies in between, both were well attended, we gave out over 150 welcome packs which included a mug, pen, fridge magnet and information leaflets.

Each person who brought an item for testing received a free RCD device provided by The Electrical Safety Council who also supplied DVD’s and information leaflets. His Worship the Mayor, Cllr C Jones, kindly attended to welcome all participants and stayed for quite a while to enjoy the event.

The feedback from both public and exhibitors has been excellent, most stalls had very little literature left at the end of the day and even sent back for more during the day, all felt the age mix was good and there was a broad spectrum which kept the publics interest. The atmosphere was relaxed and very friendly which was pointed out by a visitor from another authority, who stated some events she had attended in her area tended to be quite formal and not user friendly. Terry Walton spent the day meeting both public and exhibitors in his much liked “down to earth manner”!!

We feel that a future event is needed, the public have contacted us to check we will continue from here rather than have a one-off pleasant day. Trading Standards have identified that a large percentage of electrical appliances are being used in an unsafe condition, if we can raise awareness to keep residents thinking about safety along with our other roles such as doorstep crime and scams then we are contributing to minimize accidents, the knock on effects are healthier, safer residents in the community.