Doctor leads criticism of car park pizza vending machine
A COUNCIL has been criticised over plans to install a pizza vending machine in a beachside car park.
Patrons of the D-day Story car park in Southsea, Hampshire, will be able to order pizza from a vending machine operated by the company Pizza Rebellion if the proposal goes ahead.
The Pizza Rebellion machines are the first of their kind in the UK. Last March, the company installed one outside a pub in West Ashling, West Sussex.
Ordered from a touchscreen on the machine, which resembles a small shipping continer, the pizza, encased in a cardboard box, slides out of a letter box like slit beneath the screen.
Pizzas ordered from existing machines cost between £8.95 and £9.95, and flavours include “pulverised pepperoni”, “Pig ’n’ Pineapple” and “Rib and Pickle”.
Pizza Rebellion’s website promises “freshly made and cooked pizzas using great healthy ingredients”, but concerns have nevertheless been raised over the plans for the car park vending machine.
A local GP, Karen Malone, told the BBC that the machine would exacerbate the “epidemic of obesity and poor metabolic health”. She added that Portsmouth council had a “responsibility to promote good health and not encourage or support bad ones”.
The plans come at a time of widespread concern over rising rates of obesity. Obese people in the UK will outnumber those of a healthy weight within five years, a report warned this month.
The study by Cancer Research UK shows that by 2027, those whose weight does not compromise their health will be outnumbered by the obese. The forecasts show four in 10 will be obese within two decades, while seven in 10
‘This machine would exacerbate the epidemic of obesity and poor metabolic health’
will be overweight or obese.
Tam Fry, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: “Dr Malone is quite right to object to the proposal. The small town of Southsea is already awash with pizza joints and it is she, and not the councillors, who has to cope with the diseases triggered by the obesity she fears.
“If you really need a pizza, having battled against the Channel’s tides, taking a short walk into town to find one hot from the oven should be a doddle.”