McDonald’s confirms fast food plans for St James’ Park estate in Bishop’s Stortford
Plans are progressing to build a McDonald’s restaurant at St James’ Park, despite beef from objectors.
The fast food giant ready to build at the 750-home Bishop’s Stortford South estate faced a grilling from opponents when its proposals for a local neighbourhood centre were revealed in June.
However, the drive-thru remains an integral part of the ‘reserved matters’ scheme – which deals with details following approval of an outline planning application – which has now been submitted to East Herts Council (EHC) for a decision.
EHC, as the planning authority, will scrutinise the proposed appearance, layout, landscaping, scale and access.
The centre for St James’ Park residents and business park workers already has outline planning permission for up to 1,000 sq m (10,764 sq ft) of shops and up to 2,200 sq m (23,680 sq ft) of restaurants, cafés, hot food takeaway, local services, a gym, nursery and community uses.
Countryside is working with McDonald’s, Central Co-op and PureGym to deliver the facilities.
The involvement of the global fast food giant provoked a fierce response from governors of The Bishop’s Stortford High School.
In a fortnight, the secondary will open at a new campus near the proposed local centre and head Dale Reeve told families: “I am gravely concerned that locating a fast-food restaurant that close to our school could have catastrophic implications for the health and wellbeing of our students.”
The proposed access to the site, with the prospect of cars queuing for a takeaway, and concerns about noise and litter ramped up opposition.
Herts county and East Herts district councillor Graham McAndrew was scathing about the speed and scope of a two-week consultation carried out by St James’ Park Local Centre Team before it submitted the reserved matters application.
This week he told the Indie he would urge EHC to give residents adequate time to respond to the application.
The St James’ Park Local Centre Team said it distributed a community newsletter to 2,030 homes and asked them to give feedback, including at a consultation event on June 12.
The latest publicity for the plans said: “We had high levels of engagement with our consultation, receiving over 1,000 pieces of feedback, 10,000 website views and 150 attendees at the exhibition event.
“We received positive comments about the provision of new local jobs and a range of new amenities.
“We also received a range of constructive feedback about the proximity of the site to the new Bishop’s Stortford High School and future primary school, the consultation process, neighbours’ amenity and traffic levels.
“The local centre team has carefully reviewed all the feedback received during the consultation period prior to the reserved matters submission being made.”
The St James’ Park Local Centre Team is adamant that the location of the local centre and its relationship to the new secondary have been clear since the start of the project and confirmed in the outline planning permission.
As part of the latest application, it has submitted a transport statement which concludes that “there are no highways safety or capacity concerns associated with the proposals, nor any concerns in terms of air quality”.
The latest leaflet for residents emphasises McDonald’s green credentials and claims 90% of the chain’s core food and drinks menu in the UK is 500 calories or under.
It promises three litter picks daily at the new franchise and adds: “McDonald’s restaurants maintain a strict protocol to minimise noise and all shift managers receive conflict resolution training to ensure they can deal effectively with noise or anti-social behaviour.”
Overall, it says the local centre will create 136 full-time jobs during the construction phase, and add 210 new posts at the centre and 65 “spin-off” roles in the local economy.
