About 1,000 Bristol eateries have no food safety rating

A meeting was held at Bristol City Hall to discuss the issue

About 1,000 cafes, restaurants, shops and other Bristol premises have not had a food safety inspection since opening, posing a "risk to public health".

As many as 3,000 overall are overdue environmental health visits and one third have never been inspected.

The figures were revealed in the city council's health protection report.

A backlog caused by limited access during the pandemic and environmental health officers being redirected to Covid enforcement duties were blamed.

The city council has been given more funding for more officers temporarily.

The inspection backlog has been declared as a "serious risk to public health"

The council said they would identify unrated food outlets as a priority and that a recovery plan was in place to clear at least half of the backlog by the end of the year, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

Bristol's health protection annual report, presented to the health and wellbeing board meeting at City Hall, said the council had a yearly target of completing 80% of inspections for the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which oversees the national system of hygiene ratings from zero to five stars.

The report said: "There is an annual programme of inspections and due to the pandemic and restrictions on premises operating we were unable to carry out all the statutory food inspections as would normally have been planned for 2020-21.

It added the council had "followed FSA guidance and priority planning to focus on highest risk inspections, with many businesses having to close due to national restrictions. This severely impacted on our ability to visit and for them to operate".

"As a result, we have secured additional funding to employ contractor environmental health officers," it said.

"This remains a serious risk to public health as the backlog is significant."

City council senior public health specialist Brianna O'Malley told the meeting on Thursday, 24 February, there was a "recovery plan" in place "to meet at least half of these inspections by the end of 2022".