A DECISION is expected this month on a planning application for a McDonald’s ‘drive-thru’ fast food restaurant on the edge of Wellington.

The 425 sq metre single-storey restaurant would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, bringing 65 new jobs to the town, equivalent to 45 full-time workers.

It would be built on an unused 0.94 acre plot at Westpark 26, Chelston, immediately opposite the Shell petrol station and Budgens convenience store.

The plans, which also include an outdoor play climb centre, need to be determined at the latest by April 27, but could be decided sooner because formal public consultation closed a fortnight ago.

But the project has been opposed by town councillor John Thorne, who said it was one more step toward turning Westpark into Wellington’s equivalent of Taunton’s Hankridge leisure and retail park, next to the M5 motorway – which also has a McDonald’s.

Cllr Thorne said: “I have nothing against McDonald’s coming to Wellington, in fact, my children would certainly be lovin’ it.

“And I welcome the new jobs the company would bring, especially as McDonald’s is renowned for providing flexible hours which help staff manage their work-life balance.

“The issue is that locating it at Westpark will not help the town centre in Wellington, which has been one of the council’s top priorities in the past few years.

“We all hear the complaints about town centre shops and businesses closing and the need to keep Wellington’s economy vibrant and thriving.

“Having a McDonald’s at Westpark will do absolutely nothing to help that aim, and instead will clearly draw people away from the town.

“This sort of development is exactly what I warned about 18 months ago when the planning department allowed a drive-through Costa Coffee application at Westpark.

“I said at the time it was setting a dangerous precedent but the district council’s planning department is so weak that it allows this sort of development.”

Cllr Thorne, who is also the Somerset county councillor for the area, said Westpark itself was originally given planning permission in 2007 as a business park to create employment in various sectors of industry, not the retail market.

He said one of the conditions of the approval was that the uses of the buildings on the site would be broadly in line with the business classes submitted by developers Summerfield, a condition which it appeared had not since changed.

Cllr Thorne said: “With plans also afoot for a Lidl supermarket on the other side of the Chelston roundabout together with two family restaurants and another drive-through coffee store, we risk changing the dynamics of shopping and leisure time in Wellington for ever.”

However, planning consultants WYG, also based at Chelston, said a McDonald’s could be justified because district council planners had already allowed a Costa, Budgens, Subway, Anytime Fitness gym, Shell petrol station and the Wellesley Hospital.

WYG said McDonald’s did not have to take into account any potential impact on the retail centre of Wellington because at 425 sq metres the restaurant was just below the 500 sq metre threshold for doing so.

It said most customers would be people who currently drove to the McDonald’s at Hankridge or those who were already passing Westpark or using one of the other businesses on the site.

“McDonald’s drive-thru operation should therefore be seen as complementary to existing operators in the town centre and seeks to draw custom from a largely different target market,” it said.

“On this basis, it can be concluded that the trading effects of the drive-thru facility will have a negligible effect on existing town centre restaurants/cafes and on the vitality and viability of the town centre as a whole.”