Pub company furious as car park street food halted

Oak Taverns said it was looking forward to "entering a meaningful dialogue" with South Oxfordshire District Council

Food trucks have been told they do not have licences to set up in pub car parks after a complaint to a council.

Pub company Oak Taverns says South Oxfordshire District Council (SODC) informed it they did not have the permits required for street trading.

Other Oak Taverns pubs said they have experienced the same notice.

The council said it had "not banned street trading at their sites" but it could not allow traders to operate without a licence.

Simon Collinson, managing director of Oak Taverns, said working with local food vans was great for their pubs.

He said the traders were "all independent businesses" run by "young entrepreneurs".

'Overwhelming support'

Mr Collinson said the issue would impact 10 of its pubs across Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire which deal with roughly 25 to 35 food traders.

In a statement posted on its social media accounts, Oak Taverns criticised what it called the council's "ban on all street food trucks" following an initial complaint about litter.

In response, South Oxfordshire District Council said: "We have not banned street trading at their sites. We have been in contact with them about this situation for a number of weeks with the aim of resolving this issue as quickly as possible.

"We were therefore disappointed that Oak Taverns chose to post inaccurate information about this situation on social media and the resulting comments that we received from members of the public."

By law, all locations where street trading takes place require a specific consent to allow this to happen if members of the public can access the site without paying an entry fee. 

Mr Collinson said the council was getting bogged down in "semantics".

In a statement on its Facebook page, Oak Taverns thanked the public for the "overwhelming support" and said: "We have been trying to come up with a solution with SODC for a few weeks, we have also repeatedly asked for a face-to-face meeting.

"The guidance that was given wasn't relevant to what we were trying to do..."

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