Day 292 - 01 Nov 96 - Page 29


     
     1        We then heard from Colin McIntyre, the press officer of the
     2        local residents association, former executive member of the
     3        National Union of Journalists, for us, explaining that at
     4        the beginning of the nineties, when McDonald's planned to
     5        open a store in Kings Road, residents had opposed the plan
     6        unsuccessfully because they predicted it would create
     7        environment/index.html">litter problems, amongst other things.  He said the problem
     8        of environment/index.html">litter had come up regularly at residents association
     9        meetings, and since McDonald's had opened, rubbish in the
    10        street had got, quote, incredibly worse, unquote, and
    11        stated, quote, I would say approximately 70 percent of
    12        environment/index.html">litter is McDonald's, unquote. I think he meant in the
    13        street.
    14
    15        He produced photos he had taken as evidence showing
    16        McDonald's environment/index.html">litter in his street and the surrounding area.
    17        He said that initially the company had carried out environment/index.html">litter
    18        patrols two or tree times a day, as apparently they had
    19        promised to do these regular patrols in order to get the
    20        store open, as one of the pre-conditions, or to avoid
    21        pre-conditions they had made this promise, so he said.  But
    22        he said this did not last.  As part of its application for
    23        a late opening licence, the company had assured the local
    24        council that regular environment/index.html">litter patrols were in operation.
    25
    26        This is an important point, which is that, as we heard - I
    27        will come on to this in a minute - from Professor Ashworth,
    28        local authorities have power to impose pre-conditions, and
    29        McDonald's would know this and would have their eye --
    30        well, he was not saying this particularly, but we would say
    31        that any environment/index.html">litter patrols done by McDonald's are not, if
    32        indeed they are done, are not some kind of benevolent
    33        concern for the existence of environment/index.html">litter near their stores in
    34        general.  It is clear, (a), that they hardly ever occur;
    35        (b), when they do occur, they are just doing the frontage
    36        of the shop, which anyone who wants to have a good image
    37        outside their shop would do, and (c), for general
    38        publicity, and (d), because they may otherwise be ordered
    39        to do them.  If they were not doing them, the local
    40        authorities may make that a pre-condition and then they
    41        would bloody well have to do them as often as was
    42        identified as a pre-condition of a licence.
    43
    44        So anyway, going back to Mr. McIntyre, he said the
    45        company's assurance that they would do regular environment/index.html">litter
    46        patrols, quote, this was a blatant lie.  He said that
    47        despite continuous complaints to McDonald's there had been
    48        no environment/index.html">litter patrol down his street for two and a half years.
    49        Apart from the council, the only people he had seen picking
    50        up environment/index.html">litter were his neighbours.  He added, quote, I have
    51        seen one McDonald's environment/index.html">litter cleaner.  It was enough of a
    52        joke, we all made a note of it in our diaries.
    53
    54        He also explained how he actually sat by the window a lot
    55        of the day working and that the residents were very aware
    56        of this issue so it was not something that they might miss
    57        out.  We would say that his evidence on this subject was
    58        completely convincing and it must mean that McDonald's
    59        claim to do environment/index.html">litter patrols is completely untrue, because
    60        they said the street was on the patrol map, and either

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