McDonalds Defeat - a victory for people power!

Campaigners against Tingley McDonald's

This week the news was released that the application for a McDonald's take-away at Tingley had been refused Planning Permission by a Planning Inspector.


This is stunning news and a brilliant victory for Vicki Smith and her campaign team who have battled the Fast Food Giant for almost 3 years to prevent the application going ahead. It is also a victory for local residents who came together with a united campaign to prevent the blight McDonald's would bring to this Tingley residential area. This victory over McDonald's shows that local communities can take on large multi-nationals and defeat them even if McDonald's and others have deep pockets and political influence. This is a real victory for people power and a well earned reward for Vicki, her team and the local community.

This campaign was not against McDonald's specifically but against this location as its was clearly going to have a significant negative impact on local residents. We did propose that Capital Park - across the road - would be a better location but McDonald's refused to enter into any dialogue with us about alternative sites.

Is this the last we will see of McDonald's at this location? Probably as a refusal at the Planning Inspector level is hellishly difficult to overturn and prevents any such development for years and years.

We are now looking at working with local residents, MARC and the owners of the site to explore alternative positive uses of this site. This will be community led as we want to see the site redeveloped in a sensitive way which takes into account adjacent residential properties.

This is the third victory in as many weeks coming hard on the heels of confirmation that Cottingley Springs Travellers Site expansion plan is being called in by the Secretary of State and news that the development proposal at Ardsley Reservoir has been withdrawn. It just shows that People Power can win if we all stay united!