McDonald’s has dropped plans to extend the Weston Lock Retail Park drive-thru restaurant in Bath.
The McDonald’s restaurant site at Weston Lock retail park in Bath | Image © Google Street View / Google 2025
Earlier this year Bath & North East Somerset Council received a planning application and request for listed building consent for a single-storey extension of the restaurant at Grade II-listed Avon House.
Best Experience Limited and McDonald’s Restaurants Limited said that extra floor space was needed to increase the kitchen area to cater for rising customer demand at the restaurant, which was initially granted consent in 1998.
It would also increase drive-thru service speed and couriers would be redirected to the rear of the building to improve the restaurant experience. There would also be increased internal space to give staff a better working environment.
The applicants acknowledged there would be “some harm” to the listed building from the proposed extension.
However, the proposals would deliver public benefits which would weigh heavily in favour of permission and outweigh the “negligible degree of less than substantial harm to the heritage asset”.
They said the redevelopment would support 80 construction jobs over the duration of a six-week construction period and 10 additional full-time equivalent jobs directly on site, as well as supporting employment within the delivery services sector and other suppliers.
B&NES Council officers had queried why the extension could not be located elsewhere and were told that would require a “significantly greater package of refurbishment works that would ultimately create greater harm to Avon House”.
Those works would also jeopardise the wider operation of the site, including the flow of vehicles through the drive-thru lane.
Last week, the council acknowledged that the plans had been withdrawn.
