Licence to keep or train animals for exhibition
If you keep or train animals for exhibition as a commercial business, you will need a licence if you make money from the activity.
You are classed as a business if you:
- make any sales or carry out the activity to make a profit
- earn any commission or fee from the activity
- often exhibit or train animals for a fee, such as at dog shows like Crufts
- do not often exhibit or train animals for a fee, but the profit margin is high
The cost of a licence is £340. We will only ask you to pay the fee once we are satisfied we have all the required documentation.
Before you apply read the government’s exhibition of animals conditions in full.
Rules for keeping or training animals for exhibition
The licence holder or staff must undertake a risk assessment before each exhibition event. It must assess against each of the 5 welfare needs of the Animal Welfare Act and state:
- mitigating measures taken to reduce risks
- people responsible for this
- the operator must familiarise themselves with the evacuation procedure for each venue in case of emergency
Licence conditions
When you apply you will be prompted to upload your procedures or provide information to prove that you can meet the licence conditions. This includes:
- Staff training or sufficient experience
- Written training policy for all staff
- Feeding regimes procedure
- Cleaning procedures
- Transportation procedure
- Record of observations of illness, injury or behavioural problems
- Plan for animals to be familiarised early on with any stimulus or combination of stimuli they could experience (including individual handling, audiences and crowds, loud noises, activities around the animals)
- Policy for monitoring the introduction of new animals to existing groups
- The prevention and control of the spread of disease procedure
- Monitoring and ensuring the health and welfare of all the animal’s procedure
- The death or escape of an animal procedure
- Emergency procedures including but not limited to fire and extreme weather
- Detail the care of animals if licence is suspended or revoked
- Emergency plan for fire and breakdowns in essential heating, ventilation and aeration or filtration systems. Must include plan to house animals if property becomes uninhabitable
- Plan for site animals are travelling to. Health and safety risk assessment in place for escaped animals and evacuation process.
- Veterinarian details
- Register of animals exhibited. Must include full name of animal supplier, animal’s name and date of birth or arrival, sex, neuter status, description, microchip or ring number, vet contact details, medical history, vaccination records, worming and flea treatments, distance and times of travel to exhibition
- Record of when animals are exhibited and rotation policy in place. Log must include date and time of exhibition, duration, arrival and departure time, type and location of exhibit and animals used.
This list is not exhaustive and extra documents may be required - read the government’s exhibition of animals conditions in full for details of all documented procedures.
If you don't upload this information when you apply, you must provide it later. We need this information before we can approve your application and star rating. The licensing officer can help with any procedures you are unsure of.
How to apply
Read our privacy notice which tells you how we use your data.
What happens next?
We will review your application within 21 days. If you have not provided your procedures or proof that you can meet the licence conditions with your online application, we will ask you to send these to us.
When we are satisfied we have all the required information we will contact you to pay the licence fee in full.
Once you have paid, we will arrange for an inspector to visit your premises to check that you meet the conditions of the licence.
Following this inspection and if all the minimum standards are met, we will issue your licence. This will tell you how long your licence will last and what your star rating is, based on the government criteria. We aim to issue the licence within 10 weeks of receiving the application.
If we do not approve your licence you will receive a partial refund of £80. The application fee is non-refundable once the application process has started.
Appeals
If we have made a decision to refuse, vary, suspend or revoke a licence, you can appeal to the General Regulatory Chamber of the First Tier Tribunal.
Licence variation
To vary your licence please email Environmental.Health@liverpool.gov.uk with your proposals. We will then contact you to pay the licence variation fee.
On receipt of payment, we will review your proposals and arrange a site visit if this is required, depending on the variation.
If you need further information, please contact us.