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
