‘Tough immigration laws shut my Thai restaurant’

Shortage of chefs with Indefinite Leave to Remain status

A Thai restaurant manager says she has been forced to close her doors to customers because of Britain’s tough immigration laws.

Christine Vaughan had been running The Swan at Charing restaurant off the A20 in the village since 1996, but says the impact of government policy for the past 10 years had made it impossible to find and keep staff from countries outside the European Union.

She said that Indian and Thai restaurants are really struggling because there are so few non-European chefs who have been granted Indefinite Leave to Remain status.

Meanwhile she said that she had problems with local chefs which had caused problems for the restaurant in the past.

Those with the coveted status are in short supply, leading to higher wage demands, while at the same time Ms Vaughan said she has also lost out by losing two of her four trained chefs.

She said: “It’s all very sad, but we had no choice really. We had trained our chefs to cook English food as well, but when we lost two of them, we decided to only do Thai food.

“Unfortunately many of our customers enjoyed the chance to mix and match, so we have lost 40% of our trade and we’ve been running at a big loss for the last few months.

“It also seems that while most people will eat Chinese and Indian food, for some reason they won’t try Thai.

“It is a losing battle, so after 20 years my business partner Brian and I have had enough.”

Ms Vaughan said that her remaining staff will be going to work at the new Po Thai restaurant which has recently opened in Ashford town centre.

She added: “We would like to thank all of our loyal customers and wish them a very happy 2017.

“We’d also like to thank our wonderful Thai staff who have worked hard and been loyal to us over the years. We hope they will all go on to find other jobs where they are happy.”

What do you think? Write to Kentish Express, 34-36 North Street, Ashford, TN24 8JR or email kentishexpress@thekmgroup.co.uk

Manager Christine Vaughan, centre, with staff at The Swan