Greater Manchester Trading Standards Unit
The Unit provides specialist Trading Standards facilities and equipment for use by staff of the ten Greater Manchester districts. In the main this includes:
Local Standards of Weights & Measures
All local authorities are required to maintain standards by which their own staff's equipment, and through them that of all local traders, is calibrated. These standards also require precision equipment to carry out these comparisons and a controlled and monitored environment to ensure the highest degree of accuracy is achieved. When the former county council was being abolished it was recognised that considerable cost benefits could be achieved for all the Greater Manchester authorities by continuing to provide these facilities centrally rather than providing them ten times over.
Calibrated High Capacity Test Weights
Five tonnes of calibrated 20kg test weights are maintained together with the necessary vehicles to transport them to sites around the county. Trading Standards Officers use these weights to verify and test high capacity weighing equipment used by industries in their area. These weights are also available for hire by commercial organisations such as scalemakers and lift engineers to enable them to carry out calibration of equipment following repairs or installation.
High Capacity Wheel Weighers
Ten 10-tonne capacity units are available to enable staff in the districts to carry out highly mobile checks on the weights of vehicles on the roads and to identify those that may be overloaded. This overloading is both a threat to road safety and a cause of damage to roads, bridges and the services that run beneath them. A large reduction in weighbridges has meant that without this equipment these checks would be impossible on many of the main routes into and through many districts.
Oil Master-Meter
A calibrated mobile meter is made available to enable Trading Standards Officers to carry out checks on the accuracy of the meters on commercial oil tankers operating in their area. These checks typically follow repairs to this equipment but can also include random inspections.
Water Meters
Two calibrated meters, one high capacity and one domestic rate, are maintained to enable checks to be carried out on a range of trade equipment in use commercially or domestically.
For further information please contact:
Andrew Ashworth, Head of Unit
Hammerstone Road, Gorton,
Manchester, M18 8EQ
Telephone: 0161 234 1555
Fax: 0161 957 8379
E-Mail: trading_standards@manchester.gov.uk
Website: www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/manchester
