Plans for fast food outlet rejected

Rotherham Council’s planning board yesterday turned down an application from fast food giant KFC to build a new restaurant on the site of the former Canklow Hotel, close to Canklow Primary School.

Objections to the planning application had been raised by staff and parents from the primary school, who submitted a petition to the council saying that a new KFC would encourage unhealthy eating habits and would bring about an increase in traffic, noise and litter.

Only one resident wrote in support of KFC’s application, saying that pensioners in Canklow were “excited at the prospect of having a good clean establishment on the site.”

The new drive-through would have created 20 new jobs.

Town planners had recommended that councillors refuse planning permission, saying that the increase in traffic would have caused “disamenity to neighbouring residents”, as would people gathering outside the premises after closing time.

In the report to the planning board yesterday, the town planners said: “The introduction of a restaurant with a drive-through facility would be inappropriate in a location directly adjacent to residential properties, where it would be a likely source of injury to the amenities of the occupiers of those dwellings by reason of increased traffic manoeuvres, litter, noise nuisance, odour and general disturbance.”

Before submitting the application for the Canklow site, KFC had considered alternative sites in both Rotherham town centre and Wickersley, but rejected both.

They said vacant units in the town centre were too close to an existing KFC franchise and terraces in Wickersley would be “not suitable or viable for the operator’s proposed business model.”