The idea, which is aimed at helping to keep at bay nuisance doorstep
traders, was outlined to members of the Town Council at their meeting on
Tuesday evening.
Sergeant Paul Hughes, of the neighbourhood policing team,
first explained how officers had been called about two weeks ago to deal with
the occupants of a vehicle selling fresh fish in the Wern Road area of the
town.
He said: “We had a call from a resident in that area who
said these people were selling fish from the back of a van, which I understand
was sub-standard for the prices they were charging.
“The people were from the north east of the country and were
already known to trading standards.”
He added: “With trading standards we are looking at setting
up a no cold calling zone in Llangollen.
“This means that notices will be placed on lampposts around
the zone warning cold callers they are not welcome inside it.
“These schemes, which have been successful elsewhere,
enhance the power of trading standards in that if complaints are received about
callers inside the zone they can more easily shown to be in breach of
restrictions.”
Sgt Hughes urged anyone having problems with cold callers to
ring North Wales Police on the non-emergency line of 101, or even 999 if it is
believed vulnerable people may be at risk.
Surely the key thing to evaluate with so called 'cold-callers' is whether what they are doing is legal, ethical and moral. A 'knee-jerk' or panic reaction against all cold-callers will deny many valuable services which such people could provide to rural and isolated communities. What we need is a more efficient system to Register 'cold callers' so that residents know they are safe to deal with. Of course we don't want people selling dodgy-fish to vulnerable or indeed any other members of our community, but equally in these tough times we must encourage people who have the guts to go it alone and try to make their living in this way, which can't be easy for them either. Mike Connolly.
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