Frustrated Bracknell residents and commuters have hit back at a proposal to build a McDonald’s restaurant in the town's former Ford showroom.

Following a pre-proposal in March, McDonalds has issued a planning proposal to the council to replace the old site on Downshire Way.

Despite their aim to alleviate overtrading in the current location at The Keep, many residents have said it is ‘shortsighted and impractical’ considering the current transport infrastructure.

Michaela Webb, a resident who works in the area has experience of the overwhelming traffic during rush hour. She said: “I work on Easthampstead road, and the traffic on twin bridges during rush hour is already ridiculous, on many occasions having to wait 2 full turns of the lights before any one can move.

“Queues for this McDonald’s and/or drive thru, or people leaving, are going to cause even more issues.”

Although residents have said they are aware of the backup of traffic at The Keep, many believe that the proximity of the proposed Downshire Way site to Twin Bridges Roundabout will cause ‘chaos’.

Susan Smith expressed her opinions in a letter to the council saying: “The Downshire Way site is too near to the twin bridges roundabout where it is already congested with the lights sometimes not timed correctly and queues already backed up.

“So many accidents at the roundabout already. I'm local and have to go this way often. Chose another site.”

According to local Julie MacDonald the ‘shortsighted’ plan would simply shift the problem. This is acknowledged as a ‘transport infrastructure which already can’t cope with current traffic levels.’

She added: “The proposed site is less than 100M from one of the busiest roundabouts in Bracknell, The Twin Bridges. This roundabout already has to deal with the constant stream of vehicles cutting to/from the M3 and M4 and is the main entrance/exit to the A329M.

“As the area to the North/North West of this roundabout (which includes the Inchcape Ford Site) consists mostly of offices/industrial premises, this equates to a very high employee population also trying to make their way to and from their place of business, adding to the already high volume of traffic and creating an extremely busy junction with many accidents and near misses.”

The main concern is one of safety for drivers on Downshire Way and the Twin Bridges Roundabout.

Already an extremely busy junction, there have been serious concerns over safety if the new McDonald’s experiences overwhelming queues.

Timothy Sneller objected to the proposal saying: “Twin Bridges is a very busy junction, being the main place to cross the railway line within Bracknell. The existing access to Inchcape Ford is only 100m from the Twin Bridges roundabout.

“Having seen the queues outside McDonalds at the Millpond, I suspect that there will be queues at this new branch. The queue will be on the same side of the road as the restaurant, so any queue will extend back towards Twin Bridges, and will obstruct traffic using the junction. It will be impossible to prevent queuing on the road, and I do not believe that the building plot can be laid out in such a way, as to allow a queue long enough to prevent any overspill onto the road.

“I believe that this is a major safety issue, and I urge you to reject the application on this basis.”