New McDonald's could be coming to Winchester for city's first drive-thru

Currently Winchester only has one Mcdonald's restaurant, in St George's Street, but now one could be coming to be part of the Tesco car park, in Easton Lane.

The new restaurant is expected to create more than 65 new jobs, which McDonald’s seeks to recruit from the local area.

Five planning applications have been submitted to Winchester City Council for various parts of the project.

They are: erection of a freestanding restaurant with drive-thru facility, car parking, landscaping and associated works, including customer order displays and play frame; various site signage including four free standing signs, one playland sign, one appendage to existing tesco directional sign and 30 dot signs; installation of six fascia signs, three boothlettering signs and one 15" digital booth signs; the installation of a Mcdonalds appendage to existing Tesco monument sign; and the installation of two internally illuminated freestanding totems signs.

The site will include a play area outside the restaurant and a 33-space car park.

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On the planning statement, it said: “The site forms part of the existing wider commercial Tesco car park, to the east of Winchester.

“The restaurant shall maintain a strict protocol for ensuring noise and disturbance is kept to a minimum. All shift managers shall receive conflict resolution training sufficient to ensure they can deal effectively with noise or anti-social behaviour.

“There are no allocated sites in the centre for a drive thru restaurant, and no suitable sites. McDonald’s have explored the city centre a number of times over recent years and nothing is suitable or available. Much of the retail core is pedestrianised, with other areas being one way, restricting passing traffic.”

The planning statement explains how the new restaurant will help the local community through McDonald's charitable foundation.

It said: “Local McDonald’s franchisee Tony Bennett helped to provide 120 hours of free, safe, Fun Football sessions for local children from Winchester and across Hampshire throughout the summer. This is part of McDonald’s long term commitment to help grow grassroots football in our local communities.

“Tony Bennett and 36 crew members from nine of his restaurants, including Winchester on St George's Street recently joined forces to tackle littering across Hampshire and Dorset. This included taking to local parks to help spruce them up for the summer holidays. This formed one of twenty large scale events organised by Tony over the past five years, collecting over 400 bags of rubbish.

“In addition, fundraising events such as sponsored marathons and in-store raffles have raised over £11,000 for the Ronald McDonald House in Southampton. One such event was a talent contest called ‘Bennett’s Got Talent’ - which was held at Winchester Guildhall.”

No public objections to the plans have so far been submitted.

The planning applications are all available to view on Winchester City Council's planning website. The code for the building itself is 22/00230/FUL.

A McDonald’s spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have submitted an application for a new drive-thru restaurant in Winchester, with the proposed location being the area of under-utilised car park alongside Tesco. We look forward to progressing with this application and believe a new McDonald’s restaurant would bring significant investment to the local community, as well as create at least 65 new jobs.”

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