Victory For Residents In Campaign To Stop 24 Hour Mcdonald's

12.19.53pm GMT Thu 6th Mar 2008

• LOCAL Councillor Munira Wilson has welcomed the decision by planning officers to turn down proposals for McDonalds Drive Thru at Apex Corner to open 24 hours a day.

McDonalds' second planning application to alter its opening hours to 24 hours at the weekend and until 2am during the week was strongly opposed by residents and local councillors given the increased noise, smells, litter and anti-social behaviour the longer hours would create. Their first application last year was similarly opposed.

Cllr Wilson said "Residents were incredulous when McDonalds had the cheek to put in a second application asking for 24 hour opening after the first one was turned down in the face of strong public opposition. McDonalds have now quite rightly been told for the second time within the space of a few months that any such extension in opening hours is unacceptable as it would create an 'unneighbourly increase in noise, disturbance and pollution…during unsociable hours. I sincerely hope that this time McDonald's gets the message and does not try to put in any further application along these lines."

86 % of residents who responded to a survey about McDonald's by local councillors during the first planning application were against the extended opening hours - their front gardens are constantly used as litter bins by customers and they have to put up with fat smells from the site. Cllr Wilson added, "These problems have not gone away and I shall be working with the council's waste officers to ensure that McDonalds complies with the litter picking pledges it has made to local residents, particularly where their front gardens are concerned."