Plans for two drive-thrus turned down
PLANS for two new drive-thru restaurants in Swansea have been turned down.
A Burger King was proposed at Parc Tawe, while an unnamed operator was earmarked for a development at the former dry ski slope in Morfa.
Council planning officers said the planned Burger King, near the Costa Coffee drive-thru, would have a negative visual impact at a “prime gateway location” to the city.
Among other concerns, they also said it would result in an unsafe environment for pedestrians and drivers.
The application by Mumbles-based RBL Partnership Ltd said the timberclad restaurant would have 68 seats and be served by some of the 751 parking spaces at Parc Tawe.
An accompany planning statement said: “The high-specification, attractive nature of the proposals will enhance the aesthetic of the existing retail park, and will have no associated impacts upon visual amenity.”
The council was sent five letters of objection from a residents’ association which represents a housing development several hundred metres away on New Cut Road.
They opposed the planned late-night opening of the Burger King, and said New Cut Road and The Strand were already blighted by a “trail of fast food litter”.
RBL Partnership Ltd can appeal the refusal decision, as can another Mumbles-based firm, Carman Developments Ltd, whose drive-thru plan at the bottom of the old Morfa ski slope off Nantong Way was also rejected.
The plan dated from 2018 and was for a drive-thru restaurant, bakery, laundrette and two other commercial units.
At least 40 full and part-time jobs would be created, said a planning statement on behalf of the applicant.
Planning officers said the scheme would bring economic use to a vacant brownfield site, but they felt such use was already served by Morfa Retail Park immediately adjacent.
They also said the scheme would negatively impact on footfall in Swansea city centre, contrary to planning policy.
“The development would provide further retail and leisure facilities that would add further choice to the offer available in the area around the Morfa Retail Park, and would increase its already considerable draw as an out-ofcentre shopping and leisure destination at the expense of the city centre and efforts to regenerate it,” said their report.
However, Carman Developments Ltd has submitted a separate application for seven industrial units at the former ski slope, which the council is yet to determine.