Road safety concerns as KFC drive-through planning application delayed

Planning for a new Bedford KFC drive-thru has been delayed so councillors can check road safety and traffic concerns for themselves.

Monday’s (16 September) Planning Committee heard that objections to the plans “are not nimbyism”, but concern over “a decline in road safety”.

The KFC on Goldington Road has been open for over a year, and the owners have applied to operate a drive-through service to expand its offering to customers.

David Onions, from Pegasus Group, the applicant’s agent, said the new drive-through lane has the potential to reduce demand for onsite parking.

“As customers would now have the option to use the drive-through lane rather than park in the car park and collect their own meals and then travelling on to their destination,” he said.

Committee chair, cllr Jonathan Abbott (Lib Dem, Clapham & Oakley) said: “What will happen if on a Friday or Saturday night when it is busy, people are ordering food and the food isn’t ready and there’s nowhere for those drivers to be parked up to be passed their food?

“In theory, we’re going to see [the queue] back up, how is the restaurant planning to deal with this?” he asked.

Mr Onions said the design is “substantial enough” to cope with the busiest periods of the day.

“In terms of restaurants of this type this property has a drive-through stack that’s well in excess of units of a similar size, [to] enable most vehicles to wait in that queue off the public highway,” he said.

Cllr Christine McHugh (Lib Dems, Goldington) speaking as the ward councillor, said: “The issue about this site is that it’s just off the roundabout, and then it’s close to an entrance to an industrial site.

“And there’s going to be an increased load on this roundabout from the recent outline planning permission for an industrial site south of Goldington Road.

“Our great fear is for shunts happening, that somebody slows down to go into the site and get shunted. This is not nimbyism, this is a genuine concern that road safety will get worse,” she said.

Cllr Wendy Rider (Lib Dem, Brickhill) suggested that the Committee attend the site to see it for themselves on a Friday or a Saturday.

“Because there’s no point in going to see it when it’s a quiet period,” she said.

The committee agreed to defer their decision until after a site visit at a date and time to be determined.

By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter