McDonalds Battle To Continue

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Plans for McDonalds site have been resubmitted for October 1st 2002

The shock news that the McDonalds plans have been resubmitted to the Council comes after all appeared lost...

"The controversial plans for the McDonalds development in Ashbrake were passed by the Planning Committee last night.  The disappointing decision ultimately came as no surprise.  During the five month campaign residents were in no doubt of the difficulty in preventing the plans, due to outline planning consent having been granted 10 years ago.  This meant legally it would be extremely difficult to block the plans.  However every effort was placed into trying to find reasons which could 'stand up' if a rejection was taken to court by the developers.  Through the hard work of everyone involved, many of the objections over the five months were dealt with prior to the planning meeting, with considerable changes (improvements) made to the initial plans, limiting the impact on the local area." - Abbey Meads Intouch 30th July 2002

The developers are resubmitting the plans, in an attempt to have the 'noise restrictions' lifted, so that the opening hours can be increased.  As it stands, the plans were approved without McDonalds being able to trade before 9am and after 10.30pm.  This would have seriously restricted their morning and late night trading.  The new plans would see the opening hours extended to:

7.30am - 10.30pm (Monday-Saturday)
8.00am - 10.00pm (Sunday)

Local Councillors, and the local residents campaign group must now decide as to whether to continue to oppose or support these plans.

Reasons To Oppose:

• The residents were overwhelmingly against the plans, even with 'restricted' trading hours, therefore increasing the trading hours makes the plans even more unacceptable.
• These 'restricted' trading hours were put in place to 'lessen' the blow to the local area.
• McDonalds may be forced to reconsider the viability of the site if they can only obtain 'restricted' trading hours.

Reasons To Support

• Whilst the McDonalds plans were unacceptable to local residents, the developers have worked with residents to alter the plans repeatadly, helping 'improve' the site considerably from the initial plans.  It could be argued that whilst the Council has no choice but to allow development on the site, with these plans we have the 'best' of a bad situation.

Councillors and the local campaign group are planning to meet in:
Tuesday, 17th September 2002, 7.30pm at The Jovial Monk (St. Andrews Ridge).

It is important we do what is best for the local residents, so please let us know which option we should choose:

Cllr Justin Tomlinson - 822928
Cllr Owen Lister - 490182
Cllr Peter Stoddart - 879127
Tracy Goodwin (McDonalds Campaign Group) - 705249
Jon Booth (Ash Brake Residents Group) - 703323