Fast food around the clock

The US-based chain’s sole Borders burger bar, at Wilderhaugh, alongside the A72, reopened after March’s coronavirus lockdown on Thursday, June 4 and is now trading from 5am to midnight daily.

The company recently submitted an application to Scottish Border Council’s planning department seeking confirmation that provision of an unrestricted round-the-clock operation, in line with other outlets nationwide, would be lawful.

The bid was not a direct attempt to implement 24-hour trading, but it did at least indicate an intention to do so when trading conditions were deemed suitable.

In a letter to planners, Ross Fraser, of Manchester-based Savills, acting as agent for McDonald’s, said: “We write on behalf of our client to confirm that the unrestricted trading operations of the McDonald’s restaurant and drive-through at Wilderhaugh in Galashiels, is still lawful.

“When planning permission was granted in 2000, it was subject to just one condition, that no direct access was taken from the industrial portion of the site to the A72.”

In his report, the council’s lead planning officer Carlos Clarke, accepted the legality of the food outlet staying open without time limitations.

He says: “There is no restriction on operating hours via planning conditions and the operation of the facility for 24 hours a day is lawful as regards planning controls.”

However, a spokesperson for McDonald’s said that despite the successful clarification Gala folk should not expect to be able to tuck into Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets into the early hours with immediate effect, adding: “The team at Galashiels say they have no intention to apply for a 24-hour license at the moment. They have just refreshed their current license of 5am to midnight, seven days a week.”

Galashiels councillor Euan Jardine has given a cautious welcome to all-day opening, stating it would create employment and provide shelter to those wanting to “escape home for a few hours”.

Wilderhaugh’s McDonald’s, on the site of the former Cochrane’s garage, is the chain’s only burger bar in the Borders at the moment, although plans are being drawn up for a second one in Hawick’s Commercial Road, in between the town’s Sainsbury’s and Aldi supermarkets.