Major expansion plans for A24 McDonalds and service station move step forward

A planning application has now been lodged with Horsham District Council aimed at improving the notorious accident black spot at the A24/A272 intersection.

The Buck Barn site is currently home to a petrol station, shop and a car wash as well as McDonalds. It is now planned to redevelop the site to re-position the McDonalds drive-thru , Costa Coffee drive-thru and car wash, and to also create more parking spaces. It is also proposed to improve the existing slip road from the A24.

In a statement to the council, Mountford Pigott, agents for the applicants – the Knepp Estate – say: “The objectives of this development are to rationalise the layout of the services in view of the high traffic volumes and the awkward arrangement and access; to improve the impacts of the development upon the public highway and improve highway safety; to improve the quality and range of facilities at the services; to create additional local employment opportunities; to improve the energy performance of buildings; to identify landscape and ecology enhancements and to tackle the existing littering issue across the site.”

They say that the current layout causes several major issues: the existing McDonalds drive-thru creates a conflict with petrol station users when there are more than eight vehicles in the queue “which happens frequently at all times of the day/evening. In turn, it results in traffic congestion within the access lane, often blocking the A272 junction.

“Given vicinity of the A272 junction to the crossroads with the A24, a knock-on effect is potentially detrimental to the wider highways’ situation – therefore, the current layout is in a fundamental need of a highways’ improvement.”

The existing McDonalds is situated in a building shared with the petrol station shop but the proposed new McDonalds is designed as a single storey drive-thru unit. The existing garage shop is proposed to take over the whole of the currently-shared building.

No final planning decisions have yet been made.