Plans to open East Kilbride's third McDonald's given go ahead despite 300 objections

A planning application to build a McDonald’s in East Kilbride has been approved despite receiving over 300 objections.

Councillors at Tuesday’s planning committee gave the go-ahead to develop the drive-thru fast food chain at Lindsayfield Road, although conditions were put in place to support nearby residents.

Plans will see the drive-thru restaurant being built along with an external seating area, and access will be through the existing access road to Morrisons from Lindsayfield Road.

The proposal also includes car parking, while cycle and pedestrian access points have also been included within the design.

Following the statutory period of neighbour notification, a total of 531 representations were received – 356 were objections, 172 were in support of the plans and three were comments.

The objections included traffic congestion, adverse impact on pedestrian and vehicular safety, noise pollution, light pollution and an increase in littering.

Councillor David Watson (East Kilbride West), also raised the issue of increased traffic.

He said: “This has been quite a controversial application. I’m looking for some assurances regarding traffic management, there’s two McDonald’s in East Kilbride at the moment and at times it is chaotic.

“The representation also suggests the residential area is up a banking that borders it; there’s also a residential area to the west of the petrol station at Morrisons. And if traffic starts backing up at the site like the other McDonald’s in East Kilbride, it’s going to be chaos on the roads.

“So I know roads haven’t got any objections to it, I’m assuming roads didn’t have any objections at the time we looked at the other ones, and we’ve experienced traffic issues there. What assurances can we give local residents that there won’t be traffic issues if planning permission is granted today?”

Planning bosses confirmed that residential areas have been taken into consideration and there are conditions to minimise traffic issues but the council’s road’s department will continue to manage traffic plans and to work with the operator.

Council planning officers recommended approving the plans subject to conditions.

Councillor Graham Scott (East Kilbride East), requested that extra conditions be added to minimise disruption for local residents.

He said: “I’m in general in support of this application, but there’s some changes I’d like to put to the committee to go back.

“The point I’d like to make is the report makes reference to houses being 60 to 100 metres away, and if I can point people to the conditions – condition two states that all deliveries should be restricted from 7am to 11pm, my amendment would be that we reduce that to 10pm, the idea of major delivery vehicles at 11pm for houses 60 to 100 metres away is odd.

“And condition number three states that the proposed opening hours are 6am and midnight, I’m led to believe Morrisons and all the takeaways shut at 11pm, I think it would be symmetry if that could be moved to 11pm.”

Councillor Elise Frame (Avondale and Stonehouse) said: “I just totally agree with councillor Scott, as someone who’s previously worked in McDonald’s, the deliveries when they come are very loud, they come in large cages and are full of stuff that have to be delivered, so getting a delivery at 11pm at night in a residential area is not appropriate.

“And I agree with why it is going to be open until 12pm when everywhere else shuts at 11pm? The issue is it will be a third McDonald’s, the other ones are open later so this should be shut earlier and that would benefit the residential area.”

Plans to restrict deliveries to 7am until 10am and alter the opening times to 6am until 11pm were endorsed by the committee.

The restaurant is expected to employ more than 120 full time and part-time staff, which McDonald’s seeks to recruit from the local area.