UK judge vs Summer Palace: community rallies behind popular Cardiff Chinese restaurant after complaint about cooking smells
- Local businesses, the first minister of Wales and judge’s son rally in support of restaurant after ‘nuisance’ complaint
- Summer Palace bills itself as one of Cardiff’s longest established Cantonese restaurants
A Chinese restaurant that has served up Cantonese cuisine in a village in Wales for 32 years faces a court battle to stay in business, after one of the UK’s most senior judges who bought a house next door objected to kitchen smells wafting through his window.
The local authority decided to take legal action against Wai Chim, proprietor of the Summer Palace in the well-heeled hamlet of Llandaff near Cardiff, following a complaint by Lord Justice Sir Gary Hickinbottom, who was knighted by the Queen in 2008 and is a member of the Queen’s Privy Council.
But neither the High Court judge nor the local authority was counting on the subsequent uproar from loyal customers of the popular restaurant which sits directly opposite The Old Bishop’s Palace, in one of the village’s oldest buildings.
Local businesses, the local MP, the first minister of Wales and now the judge’s own son have rallied in support of Chim.
Hickinbottom and his wife, Lady Georgina, complained to the council after buying the property as a second home three years ago. Cardiff Council’s environmental health service found his complaint to be justified.