Street trading licence

Street trading is defined as the selling or offering for sale of any article in the street. This includes food such as burgers, kebabs, doughnuts etc or other things such as jewellery, household items plus face painting, hair braiding etc.

Streets within the city centre are designated as either consent or prohibited streets. No trading is permitted from a prohibited street. Within the consent streets there are 10 designated street trading sites. Trading can only take place from these specific sites and merchandise has to be approved by us. Any person who wishes to sell items in the city centre must first contact us to see whether there is an available site. These sites are allocated for a 12 month period and have to be applied for each year. We reserve the right to refuse any application without disclosing our reasons. Within the city centre no consents are issued for hot food or catering vendors.

Certain sites are also available for ice cream sales on the Hoe foreshore, these are issued in January for the March to September period.

You do not need a street trading consent if you are:

• trading as a pedlar under licence issued by a Police Authority, anyone within the city centre operating with a pedlars licence must abide by the conditions of such licence and will be deemed to be trading illegally if they fail to do so
• a market trader operating at a licensed market venue
• a news vendor selling only newspapers and periodicals

If you are trading on private land you may not need a consent. The landowner may need planning permission and you are advised to contact our planning office. You may also be liable for business rates.

If you wish to be considered for a street trading consent in the city centre or Hoe foreshore contact us and we will be happy to send you an application form. Alternatively, download the application form below.