Burger King drive-thru to return to Morecambe after council gives thumbs up

Members of the city council's planning committee, which met today at Morecambe Town Hall, approved the proposals put forward by the fast food chain for a new restaurant in the former Frankie & Benny's premises in Morecambe.

Burger King had originally occupied the site in Hilmore Way.

And they now have permission to reinstate the drive-thru lane at the restaurant, which would wrap around the existing restaurant unit.

The proposals had been due to be heard by a councillors in March, but were withdrawn before the meeting.

The latest plans took into account traffic concerns expressed by Lancashire County Council Highways team as well as city council officers.

Despite saying the proposals would bring an "empty and deteriorating" site "back into an active economic generating use", council officers had originally said the scheme failed to provide adequate capacity for vehicles queuing to use the proposed drive-thru.

They were concerned this would result in queuing vehicles on the shared access road, on the adopted highway Hilmore Way, and across the designated cycleway, leading to queuing traffic, delays, and blocking of access.

"These significant negative impacts on the local highway and cycling network would be detrimental to highway safety," they said.

Burger King made changes including alterations to the drive-thru to increase the overall length of the lane, changes to the car park circulation to alter the arrival route for vehicles using the drive-thru lane and pedestrian footway connections to both Hilmore Way and Central Drive and associated crossing points, to better accommodate linked trips from surrounding uses.

In addition, dropped kerb crossing points were included along with electric vehicle charging points (one to a blue badge space).

A relocated loading bay was also included as a result of the above changes.

As a result, city council officers recommended the plans be approved, which councillors agreed with.

Burger King has another restaurant in Morecambe town centre, next to the Arndale Centre, and also opened a new restaurant in Lancaster city centre in October.