McDonald's faces super scrap

Reuters

GROWTH INDUSTRY: McDonald's is New Zealand's biggest beef buyer and the angus deal will lift its annual purchase to 25.2 million kilograms.

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A fast food giant's plan to supersize its New Zealand presence is being fought by hundreds of would-be neighbours.

McDonald's intends to build 30 new franchises by 2011, but is secretive about the locations of those branches. Only six sites have been brought to the public's attention and anti-Macca's campaigns are gathering pace against five.

Public records show the company has applied for resource consents or bought land in Mosgiel (Otago), Frankton (Queenstown), Havelock North, Kaikoura and Auckland's Balmoral and Mt Wellington. Protest groups have been launched in all areas but Mt Wellington.

It is a polite battle. No burning effigies of the evil clown. The campaigners' weapons of choice are submissions to council planning hearings.

Their beef? Noise, litter and traffic. So are they just nimbys (Not In My Backyard)?

Justine Tringham, co-founder of Balmoral Says No - a group battling a recently consented McDonald's in Auckland's Wiremu St - finds that insulting. "Surely we have the right to actually complain about what happens in our community," she says.

But the group's co-leader, Nathan Inkpen, embraces the label. "Nimby? Does that mean we've got a community? Then great, I'm happy to be a nimby if it means we've got a community that cares."

In its defence, the burger chain says it will provide 6000 new jobs at its 30 new branches. Hard to argue with during a recession - even if it is scooping a subsidy from Work and Income of up to $16,000 a year for each previously unemployed worker. Critics call that corporate charity.

Tringham says McDonald's should create those jobs in different locations. She is not opposed to the golden arches in principle, but: "I feel strong and abiding hatred of a business that puts 2000 cars a day on to a site next to someone's house. And the patrons go and spread litter everywhere. That's all."

In fact, some of their best friends eat at McDonald's. "I don't think anything of that. They should just be in the right places," Inkpen says, far away from quiet suburban streets.

McDonald's spokeswoman Kylie Taylor declined to confirm locations of other future sites.

Tringham, a hospital funding manager, and Inkpen, a sales manager for a publishing company, say they feel like David fighting a corporate Goliath.

"McDonald's has vast resources, huge amounts of cash, they can pay for the best legal counsel, they can pretty much keep the independent experts on a retainer," says Inkpen. "We've got raffles and sausage sizzles . . ."

Of the $80,000 they need to get to the Environment Court, supporters have pledged $13,000. Their hope is for 500 people on their mailing list to each contribute $50 to pull in another $25,000, with the rest raised through street parties, concerts and a ball. "I fluctuate from schizophrenic happiness that we're opposing them to 'Oh Lord, I don't know how we're going to do this'," says Tringham.

In Frankton, a suburb on the outskirts of Queenstown, Fiona McDonald is leading the charge against her fast-food namesake's plan for a new outlet on State Highway 6A, arguing it will create a traffic hazard and generate smell, rubbish and anti-social behaviour.

But McDonald's says many people have refused to sign her petition, telling her she is wasting her time.

"People are like, 'Oh no, it's McDonald's, they'll win. They've got big money'."

The campaign has so far cost her $3.40 (for a lever arch file) - although it is early days. McDonald's has only just lodged its consent application with Queenstown Lakes District Council's regulatory quango Lakes Environmental.

McDonald's New Zealand declined to comment on the campaigns in opposition to its new stores. However, it is one of the few chains reporting increasing revenue in the recession - a trend the company's general manager, Mark Hawthorne, partly attributes to about half its 143 existing stores staying open 24 hours. That's what its opponents fear.

* www.balmoralsaysno.org.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News