McDonald's

Big Macs arrived in Bourne in the summer of 2014 as McDonald’s continued its unstoppable drive for domination of the fast food market. The distinctive yellow and red logo of the world's largest chain of restaurants has become a familiar sight serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries and their latest outlet opened in South Road on August 6th with a queue of people waiting to sample their burgers and fries.

The company already has 1,200 restaurants in the UK attracting three million customers every day and employing around 87,500 people while the names of many of their specialities have passed into the language. It was expected that the Bourne outlet would provide new jobs by employing 65 people, 35 full time and the rest part time. In addition, the company promised to be part of the community by supporting a range of activities from litter picks to charity events and local football matches.

The South Road location just off the Elsea Park roundabout was chosen by McDonald's for its new 98-seat restaurant and drive-thru because it was well placed to serve residents, commuters and passing traffic on the main A15 Lincoln to Peterborough road. “The proposals seek to achieve a high quality development which will make a positive visual contribution to the local area”, said the company in its submission with the planning application. “The restaurant design is considered to be appropriate to the function of the development and the site context.”

The blurb, however, did not live up to expectations because the restaurant site is tucked away behind the Texaco garage and Budgen’s mini-market as though tagged on as an afterthought to fill a piece of leftover land with the result that it looks and feels cramped and unfriendly and resembling a traffic island, while access from the A15 is confusing for motorists.

There had already been protests to the development, mainly at the planning stage in January when 31 people lodged objections with South Kesteven District Council about the possible problems of litter from fast food packaging, the smell of cooking and the extra traffic likely to be generated.

There were also concerns that the new outlet was likely to take custom from existing town centre businesses and the opening did not therefore pass without incident, one that was dramatically labelled by The Local newspaper as “Burger Wars” and consisted of a dozen staff from a local takeaway picketing the opening dressed in fish-and-chip mascot outfits and carrying placards advertising reduced prices in an attempt to persuade people to avoid the big food provider chains and support their local chippies.

Their employer, George Georgio, who runs George’s Fish Bar in Cherryholt Road, said that the demonstration was not a protest against McDonald’s but an indication that his and other similar businesses could complete with the international outlets. “We have been here for 13 years supporting the people of Bourne”, he said. “We want people to know that we are here as well and that we can compete.”

It is is widely believed that Bourne already has too many fast food outlets competing for the available business and a new restaurant can only take customers away from them. It will therefore be a matter of the survival of the fittest with those outlets providing the best food, service and prices succeeding while the others will struggle and even fail. This is known as competition, a method by which the public in a free society benefits by being given a choice and there can be no reason to complain about such a system.

PHOTO ALBUM

Staff from George's Fish Bar staging their "better deal" protest outside McDonald's on opening day.

WRITTEN AUGUST 2014