KFC and Starbucks have confirmed that they both still want to build drive-through outlets in Douglas.

The companies have now provided additional documents to the planning application.

A transport assessment of the site has now been included and it suggests that neither business is likely to impact on motorists using Peel Road.

The application for two drive-through restaurants and a third unnamed outlet on the former Eurocars site on Peel Road was submitted over a year ago.

It was recently reported in the UK that KFC plans to open new outlets across the British Isles. However, the Isle of Man site was not given a specified location, leading to concerns that the proposed Peel Road site had been dropped.

Now the applicant, Buchanan Services Ltd, has added more data, which was requested by the Department of Infrastructure before it makes a recommendation to planners.

The new information provides an update to projected traffic flow in and out of the site at peak times during the day. As KFC would not be open before 11am, it has not been subjected to the projections for peak morning traffic which would only be affected by Starbucks customers.

projections

The KFC projections focus on peak weekday afternoon and evening hours and weekends and state that a customer would take a maximum of four minutes from ordering their food to having it delivered to them.

This means that a minimum of 15 cars would be served per hour. However, the application details ’stacking’ space for up to 20 cars through the drive-through, meaning a minimum of 35 cars could be served in KFC’s busiest hours.

In addition to this, KFC projects that on a peak-hour weekend, it could serve a maximum of 58 cars per hour. The additional information states that the additional 23 visitors ’theoretically could not be accommodated’.

But by lowering the projected maximum time to three minutes from order to deliver, 40 cars could be accommodated per hour.

Bryan Hall, of the company that compiled the information, said: ’If a customer was to drive-in to the site perhaps originally intending to use the drive-through and saw a long queue and therefore a long wait for their food, they are more likely to park up and go inside the restaurant instead to be served quicker.’

The company added that it therefore believed the drive-through was large enough to deal with demand and that a queue for the drive-through would not have an impact on traffic using Peel Road.

report

The Starbucks report used data from a store in Leeds between 7am and 10am on weekdays and two Costa drive-throughs in Oxfordshire for weekdays from 4pm to 7pm on Saturdays.

That data shows that the maximum projected number of customers at once using the Starbucks drive-through at any one time would be eight, with space for 13.

Bryan Hall’s report said: ’It is therefore concluded that queuing at the Starbucks drive-through will not impact on traffic using Peel Road.’

A total of 83 parking spaces would be provided on the site.

Bryan Hall says the car park is projected to operated at a maximum occupancy rate of 44% in midweek and 86% during the weekends, with an average of 72% outside of peak hours. This means the car park will operate with ’sufficient spare capacity at all times’.

Thanks to a non-competition pact between KFC and Starbucks, the third unit will not be a food store.