THE owner of a high street noodle chain has been given the go-ahead to set up a commercial kitchen at a Cwmbran industrial estate. 

Shuxin Liu asked Torfaen Borough Council for a certificate to confirm the Asaga restaurant chain could use a unit at the Court Road Industrial Estate in Llantarnam for food manufacturing and distribution.   

It has given its approval after it was confirmed there would be no sales taking place directly at the unit and no customers would attend. The original application stated the kitchen was for distribution only to the Asaga chain. 

It has also been confirmed all the cooking equipment, that includes three kettles, would be electric and no part of the ventilation system, to remove particles and odours, will exit through the roof of any other part of the building externally. There will also be a motorized hoist to lift the pasta basket. 

The council had to consider if it could issue a Certificate of Lawfulness for a Proposed Development for the use of the unit for food preparation and its own research of planning documents, with its “tax department” and Google Earth satellite imagery satisfied it the building had a previous light industrial use. 

A firm named ‘Northumbrian Water Scientific Services’, which provided analytical testing services, is thought to have occupied the building from August 2008 throught to May 2018 and from 2019 to November last year an engineering firm used it as a warehouse. 

Planning officer Caroline Pulley said that established the use class could be changed from warehouse to food manufacturing and distribution without a change of use planning application and the certificate could be issued. 

Asaga restaurants opened its first noodle bar on Commercial Street in Newport City Centre in 2016 before expanding to Swansea and Cwmbran and opening branches in Swindon and holiday hot-spot Weston-super-Mare in 2023.