COUNCILLORS confused over the difficult wording of a council report have asked an officer to reword a document which outlined the council’s street trading policy.

The line, which concerned the process of street trading applications, read: “Only if officers are of the opinion as regards the potential suitability of the application, they should consult as follows…”

Councillors were confused about what this meant, and Cllr Malcolm Richards said: “It’s not English.”

Cllr Chris Bowring asked his licensing committee colleagues if they could “understand the wording?”.

The Plain English Campaign were contacted for comment following the confusion, and they told the News: “We would agree that the sentence doesn’t really make much sense.

“We think they mean something like: ‘Only those officers that think the application is suitable need to read the street trading policy.’

“But quite possibly not – it’s hard to say!

“I think what I can say with absolute certainty is that the writer of the document could do with some Plain English Campaign training…”

Cllr Bowring asked the officer to “reword the sentence”, and the officer said he would.