We're with you on Big Mac battleground

Like your Lil’ Mac Versus Big Mac story (MS June 25), we’ve fought McDonald’s here on pretty similar grounds. Our community firmly said no to a 24/7 McDonald’s beside our houses and we’re awaiting the planning decision.

What we found is that McDonald’s franchisees are not good neighbours – they often breach resource consents and regularly fail to manage the litter they create.

We estimated our drive-through would generate nearly three-quarters of a tonne of rubbish a year, a fair amount of which would be strewn around local streets.

The right place for a 24/7 drive-through – and this holds true for all fast-food outlets – is an industrial park with easy access and no residents nearby.

If there are already traffic issues near a proposed site, the huge volume of customers will make it a lot worse.

We believe communities can join together to stop McDonald’s from setting up in the wrong places, even though we have no money and they have lots.

When we started, everyone said it couldn’t be done but so far we’ve delayed it for two years and we’ll fight all the way.

While businesses and residential areas can be sited beside each other, district and regional council plans generally stop stinking, noisy factories from being shoved next door to houses. We think this sort of development is like a factory.

Councils need to wake up and realise people value their neighbourhood and are prepared to fight to retain it.

JUSTINE TRINGHAM
Balmoral Says No campaign
Auckland

IN REPLY: McDonald’s has applied for consent for a new restaurant on a commercially zoned site in Frankton and this is currently under council consideration.

We’ve been part of New Zealand communities since 1976 and 80 per cent of our restaurants are now franchised by local business men and women such as Leah Hepi, who owns our Queenstown restaurant.

In the Wakatipu and elsewhere around NZ, McDonald’s is a responsible business, one of the country’s largest employers and a key contributor to the local and national economy.

Each new application goes through a thorough review to ensure the restaurant operates well and contributes positively to the local area.

– KATE PORTER, national communications manager, McDonald’s Restaurants (NZ) Ltd, Auckland 

Just do it

Reading Delta Dig In Doubt (MS July 2), I couldn’t help thinking of Lincoln’s immortal words: “…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

Your article about the combined runway extension/floodworks/sewerage system project being in jeopardy talks about its future being in the hands of “the commissioners” – and how their decision can be appealed to the courts.
I’m racking my brains but I can’t ever remember voting for “a commissioner” and I know I’ve never voted for a judge – so why are unelected, faceless bureaucrats making decisions that may dramatically impact on my way of life?

How many of these people are there, who are they, and why is government – national, regional, and local – abrogating their responsibility to individuals with absolutely no accountability to the people? And if the commissioners’ decision is so readily open to challenge by an unelected judge, why put them in a position to
make the decision in the first place?

Why not do what any sophisticated democracy would do? If there’s an impediment to something that makes as much sense as flood mitigation, a decent sewerage system, and the runway extension, enact specific legislation to make it happen or handle it under ministerial powers.

The current system is more than bizarre – it stinks.

Somewhere there must be a politician who understands that the role of government is to govern for the people, on behalf of the people, and to be accountable to the people at the ballot box.

The United States had to go through a bitter civil war to define their democracy. At least they had the passion to fight about it, while we sit on our hands and let an undemocratic, unrepresentative process continue unchallenged.

ERROL DUNN
Jack’s Point