Advice for businesses

COVID-19 - Advice for event organisers on gatherings such as entertainment events

During the COVID-19 pandemic in England, if you are looking to organise a gathering of more than 30 people such as for an entertainment event, then you will need to comply with the latest Coronavirus Regulations.

When national restrictions are in place, gatherings of more of 30 people for activities such as entertainment, are not allowed. When national restrictions are lifted, Local COVID Alert Levels (Medium, High, Very High) will apply to local authority areas and entertainment events are allowed following strict guidelines.

For details of the current restrictions please go to www.gov.uk/coronavirus and Surrey's Local COVID Alert Levels can be found on Surrey County Council's website

Organised events, such as entertainment, for gatherings of more than 30 people will need to:

• Be organised by a business, charitable, benevolent or philanthropic institution, a public body, or a political body
• Have a COVID-19 risk assessment
• Have adequate COVID-19 secure arrangements in place following government guidance

To meet these requirements, you as the event organiser will need to carry out a suitable COVID-19 risk assessment for your event. Please see the Health and Safety Executive webpage  for guidance and information on how to do this.

Further sector advice is available at www.gov.uk/coronavirus and on the Events Industry Forum website at www.eventsindustryforum.co.uk

You as the event organisers must prepare the COVID-19 risk assessment as part of planning your event, and then implement and manage it for the duration of your event. You must make your COVOD-19 risk assessment readily available upon request by an authorised officer of the Council.

A checklist has been developed to guide you through the COVID-19 secure arrangements that need to be in place for an event. This checklist should also be completed and signed off by you as part of your event application. Visit Surrey County Council for the checklist.

As a significant public safety issue of concern, you should send a copy of your risk assessment and the checklist with any application or notification you make. We may review your risk assessment and give feed-back. The Council will not sign off your event.

If you do not send a suitable COVID-19 risk assessment and checklist with your application or any element of the risk assessment or associated controls do not meet current Coronavirus law or guidance, your application and event will likely:

1) attract objections; and / or

2) be referred for review by the Director of Public Health (who may direct the closure, cessation and prevention of activities that may affect public health).

This may result in your application being refused and/or the event not being allowed to go ahead.

In the event of an increase in the local COVID-19 infection rates, it is possible that events that have already been agreed may be subject to suspension and / or cancellation.

Business Support

A full range of business support measures are available to UK businesses and employees. Use this  link to the coronavirus business support website to find out how to access the support, if you are eligible, when the schemes open and how to apply. You can also find out what we are doing to help for Business Rate payers .

Business and premises closures

View the latest government guidance on the closure of certain business and venues on the Gov.UK's guidance page.

For security advice on business premises and working from home, please see top 10 tips from the Police and National Counter Terrorism Security Office  [377.74KB] .

Our regulatory services team is here to make sure that businesses are following the closure rules, if you have a concern please email Regulatory Services.

For information on business rates and reductions, please see our Business rates relief and reductions page.

Workplace safety

View the latest government workplace safety guidance for different employment settings that now include pubs, bars and restaurants, hotels, other guest accommodation, hairdressers, beauticians and skin piercers on Gov.UK's Working safely during Coronavirus page. 

We have produced a Covid-19 risk assessment template [23.48KB] to help you ensure that your workplace is Covid-secure. If you have less than five employees, you do not have to write anything down, but it might help if you do. For further advice on what to include in your Covid-19 risk assessment, visit the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) website.

If your business premises is closed, please take a look at our Coronavirus - Legionella guidance.

Licensed premises

Find out how to apply for a Pavement Licence.

Food businesses

If you are a food business such as a restaurant or café and are thinking of starting a takeaway or delivery service at this time, please see our useful Coronavirus - food safety advice for takeaway and delivery web page.

If you run a mobile street food takeaway business, such as an ice-cream van, please read our Coronavirus - advice for ice-cream van traders and mobile street food traders.

Taxi and private hire drivers

We have written to all taxi and private hire drivers about changes to operations during this time. You can read the email and download the declaration form on the Information for current licence holders.

Animal businesses

As of 4 July, The Canine and Feline Sector Group working with DEFRA, has updated its advice for pet businesses, including breeders, rescue and rehoming centres, groomers and dog walkers etc. 

Construction business

On 13 May the Government published a statement about construction site working hours to enable safe working with social distancing. 

Local planning authorities are expected to approve requests to extend construction working hours temporarily until 9pm, Monday to Saturday, unless there are compelling reasons against this.

Please read the full statement.

We will work with developers to make this change by considering Non-Material Amendment applications for most proposed changes to working hours that fall within the statement's guidelines.

All applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. If you have any queries, please email planningenquiries@guildford.gov.uk.