What we do

Hampshire County Council Trading Standards Service has a wide-ranging role in ensuring fair trading in Hampshire, by supporting the county’s businesses and protecting Hampshire consumers

To achieve this we:

• Support businesses by offering professional advice and guidance through Chargeable Business Advice and Primary Authority Partnerships.
• Inspect high risk premises such as farms, food and feed producers, importers, wholesalers and retailers.
• Monitor and provide advice to ensure the health and welfare of livestock, to prevent animal disease outbreaks.
• Carry out intelligence-led market surveillance at our borders to prevent goods that are unsafe or non-compliant with safety legislation from entering the market.
• Investigate persistent and serious criminality involving persistent consumer detriment and high levels of harm.

We do not:

• Respond to or give advice on individual consumer complaints. Consumer advice and complaint handling is carried out by Citizens Advice consumer service (CACs) on behalf of Trading Standards.
• Close businesses (we have no powers to do this).
• Take court action on your behalf in the civil courts.
• Get you your money back (we have no powers to do this).
• Tell you if we are investigating a business or give you information we hold about them.