McDonald’s Headingley: New Leeds fast food site to open on notorious Otley Run pub crawl route
A new fast food outlet is set to open despite fears it would add to unruly behaviour on the route of a notorious pub crawl.
McDonald’s faced objections to a planning application to convert a former Wilko store on Otley Road in Headingley.
The shop unit at Headingley Central is on the Otley Run, which draws thousands of drinkers to the area at weekends.
Leeds city Council received 20 letters of concern from people living nearby and ward councillors over planned alterations including a new shop front.
One objection letter said: “A McDonald’s would only add to the drunk and disorderly behaviour regularly observed on weekends.”
Another said: “The Otley Run pub crawl is already causing huge problems in and around Headingley Central.”
Concerns were also raised over littering and the availability of unhealthy fast food.
A third objector said: “Many high school children and primary aged children walk past this plot on a daily basis and I feel it would be encouraging them to grab a 99p burger on their way home from school.”
In December last year a separate licensing application from Loungers UK to open a bar and restaurant at the same site was refused.
The council received 99 objections to the Loungers application.
In its planning application, MacDonald’s said the conversion of the shop, vacant since last July, would be in keeping with the surrounding area.
Planning consultancy Lichfield and Partners said: “The proposed alterations would provide an attractive, modern shop front to the unit.
“The proposals will facilitate the occupation of the premises by McDonald’s as a restaurant, bringing a vacant unit back into an active, main town centre use.”
A council planning report said the objections received were outside the scope of the planning application.
It said: “Overall, it is considered that the proposal complies with the aims and intentions of both national and local planning policy and on balance, approval with conditions is therefore recommended.”