So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well. At the
end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his inspection. On
recording things, over the years that we had the two cafes, we have always
checked the fridge and freezer temps every day, and recorded them in a
diary, as our original EvH officer told us to. We also had cleaning schedule
books, which were filled in and signed by the employees responsible. All
seems pretty reasonable to me. However, the guy that came this time (same
local authority, same branch office, but a guy we had not had before) tells
us that there is no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact
that that they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely told
him that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of the ****
hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue doing it as she
had originally been instructed. He then started to have a bit of a cry about
the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife jumped up and told him that
she knew exactly what he was going to say, and that if he looked a bit
closer, he would see that every last square inch of it, had been treated to
two coats of a kitchen specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they fitted
the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It is a fully
disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening door, low-level
handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and so on, as I understand is
the requirement these days. Certainly, the landlords are a big London
property company, and had their own team of builders that came in to do this
work, so you would think that it would be right.

Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food establishment, this
arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a 'lobby'
leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed out that it would
not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was required by workplace
legislation. His reply was that he didn't know anything about that (!) She
also pointed out that its location was just a store-room, and that the
nearest place that there was any food prep going on, was the other side of a
fire door a whole room away ... "Ah yes", says he, "but there is a freezer
in the store-room". "But it is only used to store goods sealed in the
manufacturer's original packaging", says the wife. "Doesn't matter", says
he. So the daughter tells him that she will just move the freezer into the
main food area and avoid the issue altogether.

Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really wanted
another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this legislation,
says that as long as the toilet is against an outside wall, which it is, and
has an automatic extractor fan venting to the outside, then that is a
completely acceptable arrangement for food premises, without there being a
need for any kind of 'lobby' to access the toilet from.

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it would
not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone know a
definitive answer to this or know a web location for any write-up on the
relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by individual LAs or their
EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

Arfa

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well. At
the end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his inspection. On
recording things, over the years that we had the two cafes, we have always
checked the fridge and freezer temps every day, and recorded them in a
diary, as our original EvH officer told us to. We also had cleaning
schedule books, which were filled in and signed by the employees
responsible. All seems pretty reasonable to me. However, the guy that came
this time (same local authority, same branch office, but a guy we had not
had before) tells us that there is no need to record the actual
temperatures, just the fact that that they have been checked and found to
be ok. The wife politely told him that she did not think that was adequate
proof in the event of the **** hitting the fan for any reason, and that
she would continue doing it as she had originally been instructed. He then
started to have a bit of a cry about the counter frame being wood. Again,
the wife jumped up and told him that she knew exactly what he was going to
say, and that if he looked a bit closer, he would see that every last
square inch of it, had been treated to two coats of a kitchen specced
varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they fitted
the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It is a fully
disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening door, low-level
handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and so on, as I understand
is the requirement these days. Certainly, the landlords are a big London
property company, and had their own team of builders that came in to do
this work, so you would think that it would be right.

Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food establishment, this
arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a 'lobby'
leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed out that it
would not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was required by
workplace legislation. His reply was that he didn't know anything about
that (!) She also pointed out that its location was just a store-room, and
that the nearest place that there was any food prep going on, was the
other side of a fire door a whole room away ... "Ah yes", says he, "but
there is a freezer in the store-room". "But it is only used to store goods
sealed in the manufacturer's original packaging", says the wife. "Doesn't
matter", says he. So the daughter tells him that she will just move the
freezer into the main food area and avoid the issue altogether.

Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really wanted
another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this legislation,
says that as long as the toilet is against an outside wall, which it is,
and has an automatic extractor fan venting to the outside, then that is a
completely acceptable arrangement for food premises, without there being a
need for any kind of 'lobby' to access the toilet from.

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it would
not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone know a
definitive answer to this or know a web location for any write-up on the
relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by individual LAs or
their EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

I know of *no* food establishments where the toilets do not have such a
lobby.

You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a house.

The lobby can be used to store things like cleaning equipment.

The store room can be the lobby if you don't keep food stuff there.
You may want to fit cupboards for the stuff stored if its open to the
public.

dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a house.



I too thought that was the case but that regulation has been removed.

Bob

On Jul 18, 1:52*am, "Arfa Daily" wrote:
So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well. At the
end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his inspection. On
recording things, over the years that we had the two cafes, we have always
checked the fridge and freezer temps every day, and recorded them in a
diary, as our original EvH officer told us to. We also had cleaning schedule
books, which were filled in and signed by the employees responsible. All
seems pretty reasonable to me. However, the guy that came this time (same
local authority, same branch office, but a guy we had not had before) tells
us that there is no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact
that that they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely told
him that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of the ****
hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue doing it as she
had originally been instructed. He then started to have a bit of a cry about
the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife jumped up and told him that
she knew exactly what he was going to say, and that if he looked a bit
closer, he would see that every last square inch of it, had been treated to
two coats of a kitchen specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they fitted
the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It is a fully
disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening door, low-level
handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and so on, as I understand is
the requirement these days. Certainly, the landlords are a big London
property company, and had their own team of builders that came in to do this
work, so you would think that it would be right.

Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food establishment, this
arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a 'lobby'
leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed out that it would
not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was required by workplace
legislation. His reply was that he didn't know anything about that (!) She
also pointed out that its location was just a store-room, and that the
nearest place that there was any food prep going on, was the other side of a
fire door a whole room away ... "Ah yes", says he, "but there is a freezer
in the store-room". "But it is only used to store goods sealed in the
manufacturer's original packaging", says the wife. "Doesn't matter", says
he. So the daughter tells him that she will just move the freezer into the
main food area and avoid the issue altogether.

Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really wanted
another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this legislation,
says that as long as the toilet is against an outside wall, which it is, and
has an automatic extractor fan venting to the outside, then that is a
completely acceptable arrangement for food premises, without there being a
need for any kind of 'lobby' to access the toilet from.

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it would
not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone know a
definitive answer to this or know a web location for any write-up on the
relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by individual LAs or their
EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

Arfa

Somewhere (very likely on-line too) there is a book of words about all
this.
You need to have a look at this.
You get a lot of these jobsworths making their own interpretations of
rules.
They get this power complex after a while and start making up their
own rules too. Seen it before.
You get a rule and then there is a long list of exceptions and
"yebbuts".
Needs to be looked at carefully, often these *******s don't even
properly know the rules they are trying to enforce.

Arfa Daily wrote:

a guy we had not had before) tells
us that there is no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact
that that they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely told
him that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of the ****
hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue doing it as she
had originally been instructed. He then started to have a bit of a cry about
the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife jumped up and told him that
she knew exactly what he was going to say, and that if he looked a bit
closer, he would see that every last square inch of it, had been treated to
two coats of a kitchen specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one.

I'm sorry to hear of your woes.

If I can offer a comment - don't fight small battles with petty
officials, especially if they can make you life uncomfortable. Only
fight those you can win.

Him: "You don't need to record the fridge temperature"

You: "No, sir" (thinks: "I'll record what I b****y well like")

Him: "I don't like the wood under the counter"

You: "I'll have it varnished according to the regs" (thinks: "that's
an easy job as it's already been done")

Him: "You need a lobby for this loo, and a lid as well"

You: "I'll get on to it right away" (thinks: "see what those helpful
chaps at ukdiy say, and check the regs")

Can't help on the latter, I'm afraid...

Apart from the above, I hope the business is going well.

--

TF

dennis@home wrote:


"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well.
At the end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his
inspection. On recording things, over the years that we had the two
cafes, we have always checked the fridge and freezer temps every day,
and recorded them in a diary, as our original EvH officer told us to.
We also had cleaning schedule books, which were filled in and signed
by the employees responsible. All seems pretty reasonable to me.
However, the guy that came this time (same local authority, same
branch office, but a guy we had not had before) tells us that there is
no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact that that
they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely told him
that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of the
**** hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue doing
it as she had originally been instructed. He then started to have a
bit of a cry about the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife
jumped up and told him that she knew exactly what he was going to say,
and that if he looked a bit closer, he would see that every last
square inch of it, had been treated to two coats of a kitchen specced
varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they
fitted the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It is
a fully disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening door,
low-level handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and so on, as
I understand is the requirement these days. Certainly, the landlords
are a big London property company, and had their own team of builders
that came in to do this work, so you would think that it would be right.

Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food establishment,
this arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a
'lobby' leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed out
that it would not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was
required by workplace legislation. His reply was that he didn't know
anything about that (!) She also pointed out that its location was
just a store-room, and that the nearest place that there was any food
prep going on, was the other side of a fire door a whole room away ...
"Ah yes", says he, "but there is a freezer in the store-room". "But it
is only used to store goods sealed in the manufacturer's original
packaging", says the wife. "Doesn't matter", says he. So the daughter
tells him that she will just move the freezer into the main food area
and avoid the issue altogether.

Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really wanted
another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this
legislation, says that as long as the toilet is against an outside
wall, which it is, and has an automatic extractor fan venting to the
outside, then that is a completely acceptable arrangement for food
premises, without there being a need for any kind of 'lobby' to access
the toilet from.

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it
would not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone
know a definitive answer to this or know a web location for any
write-up on the relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by
individual LAs or their EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

I know of *no* food establishments where the toilets do not have such a
lobby.

You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a house.

did that not change if there was adequate washing facilities in it?
Domestically anyway..

The lobby can be used to store things like cleaning equipment.

The store room can be the lobby if you don't keep food stuff there.
You may want to fit cupboards for the stuff stored if its open to the
public.

Any insights appreciated

I don't think anyone has yet pointed you to the relevant legislation -
not that that always helps. But FWIW I think it is the (General Food
Hygiene) Regulations 1995 (SI 1763/1995 ). They implemented in
the UK food EU Food Hygiene Directive (93/43/EEC) so you can (if you
wish) blame Brussels if you don't like the result.

As usual they have been amended and added to a lot over the years. I
don't have access to a keeled text. But the original regs. did require
that "Lavatories must not lead directly into rooms in which food is
handled" (Schedule 1, para 3). That is, as you'll probably know now
better than me, repeated in lots of guidance from LAS and others.

The issue then is what is meant by "food is handled". I can't see
anything in the regs which defines it so it'd be a matter of ordinary
meaning and case law. I can't help with that but do note that some at
least of the guidance from LAs states that between the 2 doors there
should be a lobby, preferably ventilated, and that food should not be
stored in this space.

In short, ISTM the position is nowhere near as clear as your friend
suggests; and that you may have a bit of an uphill path to reverse the
inspection. Do you belong to any trade body which might help?

--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

"Robin" wrote in message
news
Any insights appreciated

I don't think anyone has yet pointed you to the relevant legislation -
not that that always helps. But FWIW I think it is the (General Food
Hygiene) Regulations 1995 (SI 1763/1995 ). They implemented in
the UK food EU Food Hygiene Directive (93/43/EEC) so you can (if you
wish) blame Brussels if you don't like the result.

As usual they have been amended and added to a lot over the years. I
don't have access to a keeled text. But the original regs. did require
that "Lavatories must not lead directly into rooms in which food is
handled" (Schedule 1, para 3). That is, as you'll probably know now
better than me, repeated in lots of guidance from LAS and others.

The issue then is what is meant by "food is handled". I can't see
anything in the regs which defines it so it'd be a matter of ordinary
meaning and case law. I can't help with that but do note that some at
least of the guidance from LAs states that between the 2 doors there
should be a lobby, preferably ventilated, and that food should not be
stored in this space.

In short, ISTM the position is nowhere near as clear as your friend
suggests; and that you may have a bit of an uphill path to reverse the
inspection. Do you belong to any trade body which might help?

--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com


Thanks for that, Robin, and the others who responded. It's a bit as I
suspected by the looks of it. Lots of Brussels waffle-ese and a degree of
'local' interpretation. Don't get me wrong - the guy wasn't bad-arsed about
it. He didn't give us two weeks to 'fix the "problem" or else' or anything
like that, and he seemed okay with moving the freezer to get around it, but
with the best will in the world, he's gonna be thinking that he would rather
have it that way, just in case ...

We had the cafes for a lot of years, and had quite cordial relations with
all the various inspectors that called to the both of them in that time, and
we are well aware of how to 'go along' with them, and politely 'question'
other of their observations. I accept that they have a difficult and
necessary job to do, particularly when you see disgusting and dangerous
practices such as were highlighted in last weeks episode of "Undercover
Boss" on the TV. As I said, it was the first time that we had seen this
particular guy, so I don't suppose that he has any knowledge of our previous
enterprises, or our track record with his department. Maybe he's new and
just being a bit 'new broom'. That said, we have had visits in the past
where some small thing has been requested to be changed, and then a
different officer has come back to recheck, and questioned why the other guy
made us do it ... (!) :-)

Arfa

"Terry Fields" wrote in message
...

Arfa Daily wrote:

a guy we had not had before) tells
us that there is no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact
that that they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely
told
him that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of the
****
hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue doing it as
she
had originally been instructed. He then started to have a bit of a cry
about
the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife jumped up and told him that
she knew exactly what he was going to say, and that if he looked a bit
closer, he would see that every last square inch of it, had been treated
to
two coats of a kitchen specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one.

I'm sorry to hear of your woes.

If I can offer a comment - don't fight small battles with petty
officials, especially if they can make you life uncomfortable. Only
fight those you can win.

Him: "You don't need to record the fridge temperature"

You: "No, sir" (thinks: "I'll record what I b****y well like")

Him: "I don't like the wood under the counter"

You: "I'll have it varnished according to the regs" (thinks: "that's
an easy job as it's already been done")

Him: "You need a lobby for this loo, and a lid as well"

You: "I'll get on to it right away" (thinks: "see what those helpful
chaps at ukdiy say, and check the regs")

Can't help on the latter, I'm afraid...

Apart from the above, I hope the business is going well.

--

TF

Thanks Terry. Yes, very well. Probably better than we had predicted - at
least so far. As to the other stuff, see my reply to Robin, further down.

Arfa

On 18/07/2011 01:52, Arfa Daily wrote:
So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well. At
the end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his inspection. On
recording things, over the years that we had the two cafes, we have
always checked the fridge and freezer temps every day, and recorded them
in a diary, as our original EvH officer told us to. We also had cleaning
schedule books, which were filled in and signed by the employees
responsible. All seems pretty reasonable to me. However, the guy that
came this time (same local authority, same branch office, but a guy we
had not had before) tells us that there is no need to record the actual
temperatures, just the fact that that they have been checked and found
to be ok. The wife politely told him that she did not think that was
adequate proof in the event of the **** hitting the fan for any reason,
and that she would continue doing it as she had originally been
instructed. He then started to have a bit of a cry about the counter
frame being wood. Again, the wife jumped up and told him that she knew
exactly what he was going to say, and that if he looked a bit closer, he
would see that every last square inch of it, had been treated to two
coats of a kitchen specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they
fitted the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It is a
fully disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening door,
low-level handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and so on, as I
understand is the requirement these days. Certainly, the landlords are a
big London property company, and had their own team of builders that
came in to do this work, so you would think that it would be right.

Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food establishment, this
arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a 'lobby'
leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed out that it
would not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was required by
workplace legislation. His reply was that he didn't know anything about
that (!) She also pointed out that its location was just a store-room,
and that the nearest place that there was any food prep going on, was
the other side of a fire door a whole room away ... "Ah yes", says he,
"but there is a freezer in the store-room".

The regulations - Food safety (General Food Hygiene) regulations 1995,
2005 & 2006 - simply say a 'food room', which government guidelines
interpret as any place where food is handled, not just those where it is
prepared.

"But it is only used to
store goods sealed in the manufacturer's original packaging", says the
wife. "Doesn't matter", says he.

There is the potential for contamination to be transferred from the
exterior of the packaging to a surface in a food preparation area. This
(and how you address the problem) should be identified in your food
safety hazard analysis. Storing the packages in an area used by people
with possible fecal contamination on their hands must increase that
risk, even if only marginally.

So the daughter tells him that she will
just move the freezer into the main food area and avoid the issue
altogether.

Probably the only answer.


Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really wanted
another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this
legislation, says that as long as the toilet is against an outside wall,
which it is, and has an automatic extractor fan venting to the outside,
then that is a completely acceptable arrangement for food premises,
without there being a need for any kind of 'lobby' to access the toilet
from.

The only requirement of the regulations is that it does not open into a
food room. If the store contains no food, that requirement is met.


With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it
would not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone
know a definitive answer to this or know a web location for any write-up
on the relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by individual
LAs or their EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

My experience with factory inspectors, over many years, is that they
will always come up with something. Unfortunately, over time, the
something apparently becoming more and more from book learning, rather
than from practical experience. The only answer is to nod, agree, and,
unless they issue an enforcement notice, when they leave decide whether
anything the inspector said can safely be ignored until next time, when
there will probably be a different inspector with different priorities.

Colin Bignell

"Bob Minchin" wrote in message
...
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a
house.



I too thought that was the case but that regulation has been removed.

I wonder when that happened, and why?

Just for completeness, in case you talk to anyone about the law, I've
been told that the relevant legislation for England is now the Food
Hygiene
(England) Regulations 2006 and (EC) 852/2004 on the
hygiene of foodstuffs where Annex II, Chapter I, paragraph 3 has
"Lavatories are not to open directly into rooms in which
food is handled." Sorry I was so out of date.

One other thought: might it help to put up a big notice "No food to be
stored in this area"? That way if on the next inspection there should
happen to be food there then the management can blame the staff

--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a
house.
did that not change if there was adequate washing facilities in it?
Domestically anyway..

You are correct. And unsurprisingly dennise was wrong.

--
Adam

In article ,
ARWadsworth wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a
house.
did that not change if there was adequate washing facilities in it?
Domestically anyway..

You are correct. And unsurprisingly dennise was wrong.

I'm wondering if the corridor was more to do with preventing airborne
contamination?

--
*I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
ARWadsworth wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a
house.
did that not change if there was adequate washing facilities in it?
Domestically anyway..

You are correct. And unsurprisingly dennise was wrong.

I'm wondering if the corridor was more to do with preventing airborne
contamination?

You wouldn't want the smells to get into the food either.
Those smells include the cleaning stuff which IME does get into some foods
if you use it near the food.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
ARWadsworth wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a
house.
did that not change if there was adequate washing facilities in it?
Domestically anyway..

You are correct. And unsurprisingly dennise was wrong.

I'm wondering if the corridor was more to do with preventing airborne
contamination?

My last experience of catering was when I was a student with a holiday job
and that was in the hospital kitchens. Back then (only 20 years ago) the
toilets were seperated by two doors from the kitchens (actually more doors
as they were some distance away) and there was a sink between the two doors
and a double handwash policy. Of course 20 years ago the toilet was the
unofficial smoking room:-)


--
Adam

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it would
not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone know a
definitive answer to this or know a web location for any write-up on the
relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by individual LAs or their
EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

Arfa


Yes, 'fraid not about the EH regs or the interpretation thereof ..but it
does seem that Mrs Arfa is a formidable lady who stands her ground....
--
Tony Sayer

In article ,
Bob Minchin writes:
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a house.



I too thought that was the case but that regulation has been removed.

It never was the case, but was misinterpreted as such by some BCO's.
Wording was changed to make it clearer.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

[Default] On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:52:11 +0100, a certain chimpanzee,
"Arfa Daily" , randomly hit the keyboard and
wrote:

snip

This comes up a lot when dealing with food premises.

WRT the Building Regulations guidance, the Approved Document says, "a
place containing a sanitary covenience and/or associated hand washing
facilities should be separated by a door from any place used for the
preparation of food (including a kitchen)". Separated by a door does
not mean a lobby.

However, in the next paragraph it says, "For workplaces, the
Workplaces (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 apply to the
separation of a place containing a sanitary convenience and/or
associated hand washing facilities and a workplace". Whether this has
any bearing, I don't know.

I usually say that such work complies with the Building Regulations,
but always advise the developers to check with Environmental Health as
to whether it meets their Regulations.
--
Hugo Nebula
"If no-one on the internet wants a piece of this,
just how far from the pack have I strayed"?

On 18/07/2011 11:20, Owain wrote:
....
PS I think your wife is right about recording actual fridge temps -
but don't forget to check the thermometer is accurate occasionally,
and record that as well.
....

I suspect that, for the actual temperatures to have any value in case of
a problem, the thermometer would need to be calibrated and certified as
accurate by an external body every so often.

Colin Bignell

PS I think your wife is right about recording actual fridge temps -
but don't forget to check the thermometer is accurate occasionally,
and record that as well.
...

I suspect that, for the actual temperatures to have any value in case
of a problem, the thermometer would need to be calibrated and
certified as accurate by an external body every so often.

AIUI neither the legislation[1] on food storage nor anything else
requires that *any* record is kept. I thought it was more a matter of
it being good practice to keep records in order to show in case of
complaint that you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all
due diligence to avoid committing the offence of not storing the food
correctly. Some LAs suggest you record actual temperatures. Other LAs
suggest just a checklist which records either that the temperature was
OK or, if not, what action was taken to correct it.

AIUI there's also no statutory control of the accuracy of the
thermometer. It just has to be accurate enough. As usual, the easiest
thing is probably to look at the guidance from the LA covering your
place and follow that.


[1] The Food Safety (Temperature Control) Regulations 1995


--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:07:15 +0100, "Robin" wrote:

Just for completeness, in case you talk to anyone about the law, I've
been told that the relevant legislation for England is now the Food
Hygiene
(England) Regulations 2006 and (EC) 852/2004 on the
hygiene of foodstuffs where Annex II, Chapter I, paragraph 3 has
"Lavatories are not to open directly into rooms in which
food is handled."

That phrase brought up lots of good results with a google search
including several inspectors' reports on food premises and nurseries.
It was not clear if sealed boxes of food could be stored - as the
handler would be touching boxes not food.

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it would
not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone know a
definitive answer to this or know a web location for any write-up on the
relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by individual LAs or
their
EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

Arfa


Yes, 'fraid not about the EH regs or the interpretation thereof ..but it
does seem that Mrs Arfa is a formidable lady who stands her ground....
--
Tony Sayer



Oh yes, Tony. You betta believe THAT ! :-)

Arfa

"Owain" wrote in message
...
On Jul 18, 1:52 am, "Arfa Daily" wrote:
... He then started to have a bit of a cry about
the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife jumped up and told him that
she knew exactly what he was going to say, and that if he looked a bit
closer, he would see that every last square inch of it, had been treated
to
two coats of a kitchen specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

I did wonder about that when I saw the photos. I didn't know you could
get kitchen specced varnish.



It came from Toolstation, and was specifically formulated for use on
surfaces in kitchens, and bathrooms, so I guess that means totally
waterproof ?? Maybe that it contains a long term fungicide, something like
that ?? Dunno, but when I saw it in the catalogue, having had previous
experience of EvH officers and their suspicions of wood, I thought aha!
That's just what is needed. And so it proved last week ... I must be
psychic. Or maybe that's psychiatric ... :-)

Arfa

"Hugo Nebula" wrote in message
...
[Default] On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 01:52:11 +0100, a certain chimpanzee,
"Arfa Daily" , randomly hit the keyboard and
wrote:

snip

This comes up a lot when dealing with food premises.

WRT the Building Regulations guidance, the Approved Document says, "a
place containing a sanitary covenience and/or associated hand washing
facilities should be separated by a door from any place used for the
preparation of food (including a kitchen)". Separated by a door does
not mean a lobby.

However, in the next paragraph it says, "For workplaces, the
Workplaces (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 apply to the
separation of a place containing a sanitary convenience and/or
associated hand washing facilities and a workplace". Whether this has
any bearing, I don't know.

I usually say that such work complies with the Building Regulations,
but always advise the developers to check with Environmental Health as
to whether it meets their Regulations.
--
Hugo Nebula
"If no-one on the internet wants a piece of this,
just how far from the pack have I strayed"?

Good input Neb. Thanks. I think that basically what everyone has said,
underlines what I thought - that is that different interested parties all
have different agendas / guidelines / regs / statutory requirements /
recommendations, and then interpretations of all those, and no joined up
thinking between them all. Interestingly, a BCO came with the builders on
their final visit to sign off the conversion work that they had done, and he
did a detailed inspection of the new bog block, in the full knowledge that
it was a food premises that it was located in, and he did not, as you say,
have any problems with it by his regulations.

When push comes to shove, I'm not that bothered about what The EvH officer
had to say on the matter, as he agreed that it *could* be resolved by simply
moving the freezer, so if he actually takes the trouble to put it in
writing, that's what we'll do. The room is not used for any food prep, and
is unlikely to be. There's not actually any prep as such to be done, anyway.
Any food handling is done in the front, where it's all stainless steel and
in full view of the customers anyway. That's exactly the way it was in our
cafes, and the customers seemed to like it that way. Overall, he seemed a
decent enough chap from what I can understand as I wasn't actually present
at the time, and he gave us an immediate 4 stars, so that was ok :-) As
others have said, in my experience, it's not worth getting arsey with these
people. It's just nice for my own peace of mind, to know exactly where they
are coming from on these matters, and with what justification.

Arfa

On 18/07/2011 08:01, dennis@home wrote:


"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well.
At the end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his
inspection. On recording things, over the years that we had the two
cafes, we have always checked the fridge and freezer temps every day,
and recorded them in a diary, as our original EvH officer told us to.
We also had cleaning schedule books, which were filled in and signed
by the employees responsible. All seems pretty reasonable to me.
However, the guy that came this time (same local authority, same
branch office, but a guy we had not had before) tells us that there is
no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact that that
they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely told him
that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of the
**** hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue doing
it as she had originally been instructed. He then started to have a
bit of a cry about the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife
jumped up and told him that she knew exactly what he was going to say,
and that if he looked a bit closer, he would see that every last
square inch of it, had been treated to two coats of a kitchen specced
varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they
fitted the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It is
a fully disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening door,
low-level handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and so on, as
I understand is the requirement these days. Certainly, the landlords
are a big London property company, and had their own team of builders
that came in to do this work, so you would think that it would be right.

Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food establishment,
this arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a
'lobby' leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed out
that it would not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was
required by workplace legislation. His reply was that he didn't know
anything about that (!) She also pointed out that its location was
just a store-room, and that the nearest place that there was any food
prep going on, was the other side of a fire door a whole room away ...
"Ah yes", says he, "but there is a freezer in the store-room". "But it
is only used to store goods sealed in the manufacturer's original
packaging", says the wife. "Doesn't matter", says he. So the daughter
tells him that she will just move the freezer into the main food area
and avoid the issue altogether.

Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really wanted
another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this
legislation, says that as long as the toilet is against an outside
wall, which it is, and has an automatic extractor fan venting to the
outside, then that is a completely acceptable arrangement for food
premises, without there being a need for any kind of 'lobby' to access
the toilet from.

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it
would not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does anyone
know a definitive answer to this or know a web location for any
write-up on the relevant regs ? Or is it a case of interpretaion by
individual LAs or their EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

I know of *no* food establishments where the toilets do not have such a
lobby.

You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a house.

No you won't you idiot.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman www.medwayhandyman.co.uk

On 18/07/2011 14:11, Robin wrote:
PS I think your wife is right about recording actual fridge temps -
but don't forget to check the thermometer is accurate occasionally,
and record that as well.
...

I suspect that, for the actual temperatures to have any value in case
of a problem, the thermometer would need to be calibrated and
certified as accurate by an external body every so often.

AIUI neither the legislation[1] on food storage nor anything else
requires that *any* record is kept. I thought it was more a matter of
it being good practice to keep records in order to show in case of
complaint that you took all reasonable precautions and exercised all
due diligence to avoid committing the offence of not storing the food
correctly. Some LAs suggest you record actual temperatures. Other LAs
suggest just a checklist which records either that the temperature was
OK or, if not, what action was taken to correct it.

There is a statutory requirement to carry out a food safety hazard
audit. IMO it would be very difficult to carry one out without the
actions section including a requirement to keep such records.

AIUI there's also no statutory control of the accuracy of the
thermometer. It just has to be accurate enough.

The question any quality control auditor would then ask you is, in the
absence of any documented calibration, how do you demonstrate it is, or,
more important, that it was at the time the temperature was measured?

As usual, the easiest
thing is probably to look at the guidance from the LA covering your
place and follow that.


[1] The Food Safety (Temperature Control) Regulations 1995

I am merely making the point that, if the thermometer is not calibrated,
recording the actual temperatures is probably no more useful than
recording that it was checked. Unless, of course, there is some other
reason for taking them - checking them for trends that may indicate
impending equipment failure, for example.

Colin Bignell

The Medway Handyman wrote:
On 18/07/2011 08:01, dennis@home wrote:


"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...
So, three weeks in now on the burger joint, and all going very well.
At the end of last week, the EvH officer turned up to do his
inspection. On recording things, over the years that we had the two
cafes, we have always checked the fridge and freezer temps every
day, and recorded them in a diary, as our original EvH officer told
us to. We also had cleaning schedule books, which were filled in
and signed by the employees responsible. All seems pretty reasonable to
me.
However, the guy that came this time (same local authority, same
branch office, but a guy we had not had before) tells us that there
is no need to record the actual temperatures, just the fact that
that they have been checked and found to be ok. The wife politely told
him that she did not think that was adequate proof in the event of
the **** hitting the fan for any reason, and that she would continue
doing it as she had originally been instructed. He then started to
have a bit of a cry about the counter frame being wood. Again, the wife
jumped up and told him that she knew exactly what he was going to
say, and that if he looked a bit closer, he would see that every
last square inch of it, had been treated to two coats of a kitchen
specced varnish, so he was ok with that.

Then came his big one. When the landlords did the conversion, they
fitted the new bog in the corner of the store-room out the back. It
is a fully disabled specced toilet, complete with outward opening
door, low-level handle, hand safety bars unlidded toilet seat and
so on, as I understand is the requirement these days. Certainly, the
landlords
are a big London property company, and had their own team of
builders that came in to do this work, so you would think that it
would be right. Anyways, the EvH guy says that because it is a food
establishment,
this arrangement is not acceptable because the toilet should have a
'lobby' leading into it, and a lid on the toilet. The wife pointed
out that it would not then be a disabled accessible toilet, as was
required by workplace legislation. His reply was that he didn't know
anything about that (!) She also pointed out that its location was
just a store-room, and that the nearest place that there was any
food prep going on, was the other side of a fire door a whole room
away ... "Ah yes", says he, "but there is a freezer in the
store-room". "But it is only used to store goods sealed in the
manufacturer's original packaging", says the wife. "Doesn't
matter", says he. So the daughter tells him that she will just move
the freezer into the main food area and avoid the issue altogether.

Apparently, that would be ok, but he still said that he really
wanted another door in front of the main toilet door.

Since then, another friend who (thinks he) is up on all this
legislation, says that as long as the toilet is against an outside
wall, which it is, and has an automatic extractor fan venting to the
outside, then that is a completely acceptable arrangement for food
premises, without there being a need for any kind of 'lobby' to
access the toilet from.

With the location of the emergency escape door in the rear wall, it
would not be easy to add any kind of lobby in any case, so does
anyone know a definitive answer to this or know a web location for
any write-up on the relevant regs ? Or is it a case of
interpretaion by individual LAs or their EvH officers ?

Any insights appreciated

I know of *no* food establishments where the toilets do not have
such a lobby.

You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a
house.

No you won't you idiot.

Best cross "building inspector" off the list of things dennise claims to be.

--
Adam

On 18/07/2011 11:21, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In ,
Bob writes:
dennis@home wrote:


You will fail building regs if a toilet opens onto the kitchen in a house.



I too thought that was the case but that regulation has been removed.

It never was the case, but was misinterpreted as such by some BCO's.
Wording was changed to make it clearer.

That's right. Years ago my grandmother was becoming less able to manage
the stairs and we partitioned part of her kitchen off to fit a
downstairs toilet. As long as there were handwashing facilities in the
toilet "cubicle" BC had no problem.

SteveW