Council Leader Delivers Update On The Traffic Congestion Issue At McDonald's In Burgess Hill
30th January 2020 | By Peter Chapman
The issue of chronic traffic congestion at McDonald's in Burgess Hill Town Centre has been rumbling on since February 2018 without a solution. On Monday evening at the full meeting of Burgess Hill Town Council, Leader Robert Eggleston delivered an update.
Cllr Eggleston revealed that he and other Meeds Ward councillors had met with Ismet Turen - managing director of the McDonalds franchise, together with his advisory team.
The purpose of the meeting was to see if a commercial solution could be found.
A proposal was put forward by Ismet Turen which involved the creation of a second serving lane off the roundabout as this would double the number of customers being served through the drive thru. The restaurant would be willing to explore this option seriously but to make it work, the second lane would need to have its access from the MSDC Station Road car park.
For this proposal to proceed it would be necessary for MSDC to:
- Grant access to the restaurant via its car park; and
- Fund the cost of creating the access from the rear of the car park onto the McDonalds site.
Mr Eggleston has written
to the senior officers at MSDC with an outline of Ismet Turen’s proposal and it is currently with the Divisional Leaders for Parking and Planning to consider.
A response is due by the end of the month.
Regular readers will know that your reporter (Peter Chapman) has kept the issue alive with Richard Speller - West Sussex County Council Highways Manager for Mid Sussex since 2018, attending all the CLC Meetings to question him in public.
Richard announced at the CLC meeting in late 2019 that there was no solution that WSCC could provide beyond putting clearer markings in the roundabout to prevent motorists from blocking access. He said if someone comes up with an engineering solution, he'd like to hear it.
Previously, the county council had investigated the possibility to creating a new access to McDonald's off Station Road, but this was a non-starter due to adverse public reaction.
Interestingly, NewRiver Retail's latest planning application has been highlighted by MSDC as an opportunity to sort out the congestion as the redevelopment of the Martlets Shopping Centre is anticipated to bring more visitors to the town.
Fingers crossed for a plan of action being presented in the next week or so....
| Spread the word, we could be closer to a solution being proposed for the traffic congestion at McDonald's.
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 Got an opinion on this story? Leave a comment below.....
What do you think MSDC will propose in terms of alterations to Station Road Car Park to aid the traffic flow at the roundabout?
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