Star guide to reveal where's safe to eat (From Swindon Advertiser)

Star guide to reveal where's safe to eat

8:56am Tuesday 9th January 2007

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COCKROACHES, grease and grime hidden in Swindon's takeaway, restaurants and pub kitchens will soon be open for all to see.

Swindon's food inspectors are launching a star rating scheme on April 1 that will see the results of their visits go up on the council website to help diners decide for themselves whether their favourite restaurant, chippy or caf is up to scratch.

In a newsletter to be sent to the hundreds of bus-inesses on the council's food premises register next week, the town's food hygiene team say that it will be adopting the same five-star rating system that is to be rolled out across Wiltshire later this year.

While the council does not have the power to force food vendors to display their "score on the door", health inspection boss Janice Bardwell said that the borough hoped the Food Standards Agency would give them the powers.

She said that the results from all inspections from the start of the year would go up on the council's website on April 1 and will be updated as the visits are conducted across the town.

Ms Bardwell said that the scheme rewarded good operators while forcing dirty vendors to clean up their acts.

"The public has the right to know," Ms Bardwell said.

"It's a star system. Three stars means you're all right, you've just about got there.

"Five stars mean you are doing really well."

Ms Bardwell said that food inspectors would welcome the power to force businesses to post their scores where they could be seen by customers.

"We could use a national scheme as soon as possible," Ms Bardwell said.

"We would like to progress to scores on the doors. We don't have the powers to force people to put it on the door. We are not in the business of closing businesses down.

"When we do have a premise that's very poor, they are in the minority."

Ms Bardwell said that the experience of other towns that had trailed the measure was that dirty kitchens picked up their game.

"They were talking about how much hygiene has improved since they started putting scores on the door," she said.

Ms Bardwell said the food hygiene team were keen to work with businesses, and had recently invited more than 300 to free seminars and one-on-one management tutoring. Seminar graduate and Wood Street caf owner David Smith said safe operators had nothing to fear from the scheme.

"When you come in somewhere, you are putting your trust in them to give you a nice experience and something that's not going to come back on you in three days," Mr Smith, who owns Woods of Wood Street, said.

"The information is going to be out in the public domain on the website. I would use it."

Mr Smith said that the scores would be a good starting point for visitors to the town in choosing where to eat.

Diner Carole New, from Nythe, welcomed the plan.

"I think it's a good idea," the 63-year-old home tutor said.

"I don't use the web very much and I wouldn't use it to check star ratings.

"Stars on the door would be a good idea. I'd use that.

"It's nice to feel safe. I had food poisoning once and I don't want it again."

l In October Basmati Tandoori at the bottom of Swindon's Victoria Road was closed after it was found to be infested with cockroaches.

The Indian restaurant was closed with immediate effect after Swindon Council carried out an inspection and then took the owner to court.

As well as a cockroach infestation, environmental health officers uncovered worrying lapses in food safety and storage.

They discovered rotten food in between cooking appliances, and pre-packed poppadoms under an oil-soaked copy of a newspaper from April.

At the time, the premises were given two weeks to clean up its act and the closure order has now been lifted.

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