Merry Hill Subway branch will remain closed after mouse droppings found near serving area

Magistrates heard two staff members from Dudley Council visited the store, on the lower mall at Merry Hill, on January 8 after a report from a customer three days earlier that they had seen a mouse.

Senior Environmental Health officer Anna Blake said: "We found mouse droppings immediately in the front serving area where open ingredients for sandwiches are kept.

"My colleague then found further droppings around where the syrup is kept for soft drinks and on looking around the store they were also seen in the staff area, along with a number of openings where mice could potentially get into the store.

"Mice carry disease on their fur and their paws and obviously it is a far from ideal scenario for them to be present where food is being prepared or served and there was plenty of evidence of this."

The store was given a temporary order and owners Sirtek, which runs a number of Subway franchises in the West Midlands, was ordered to bring in a pest control company to inspect the premises.

Stewart Wright, prosecuting for Dudley Council said: "The pest control inspectors said there was no fresh evidence of mice activity nor any fresh droppings around the store.

"But there were a number of areas where it would have been easy for a mice to get into the store and it was obvious from what was found by our inspectors that this had been the case."

Magistrates granted the prohibition order in accordance with regulation 8(2) of the Food Safety Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013.

The store will remain closed until a further inspection has been made and the court also ordered Sirtek to pay £1,340,31 in costs.

A spokesman woman for the Merry Hill Shopping Centre, said: “The health and safety of anyone who visits or works at Merry Hill is always our top priority and amongst many measures we have in place, we have a strict policy covering this particular area – going above and beyond in our approach to any pest activity.

“We work closely with our retailer community and Dudley Environmental Health to ensure the centre has high standards of safety and hygiene. We’re working with Subway to help resolve this isolated incident swiftly and want to reassure our customers that across the centre we have strict measures in place to ensure the safety of our visitors.

“The Subway restaurant is currently closed, while this issue is resolved, and both are brought up to our rigorous standards.”