Jo Learmonth: Wānaka Business Chamber Chair on the potential impact of a McDonald's in the city

Wānaka's business community doesn't appear to have been fazed by the now unlikely prospect of McDonalds setting up shop in town.  

The fast-food giant has had its resource application to open in the town declined after 90% of submissions opposed the idea.  

Wānaka Business Chamber Chair Jo Learmonth told Mike Hosking there was a variety of opinions in their community survey.  

But she says most indicated they don't see it impacting their business, or the business economy. 

McDonalds has two weeks to appeal the decision. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
After far too much time and energy and money on
arguing about Hamburgers and Mount Iron, their application to open
locally was turned down. Of course, Wanic a business chamber
board share Joe liamoth is with us Jovery, good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
You, Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Did the chamber submit.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
No, we did not not a role to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Well, it's not Health New Zealand's role either, but they submitted.
Every manner's dog submitted. What to forget the result? But
what are shambles of a process? Do we really have
that much time, money and energy to get do this
sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I don't think it's the shambles of a process. All
resource consents processes that the similarity to open up for
public submissions or not, depending on the details of the consent,
So it's not a shambolic. It's obviously just bought a
bit more of a tension than probably a normal resource
concent application.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
What's the vibe and the town pollwise? Have you ran
a pole is as popular or not?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
So? We obviously represent the business community, so not necessarily
a vibe but the town, but the business community where
about three hundred members, So we ran a survey to
be able to understand. I guess the sentiment of air
members regarding the topic, given that it's a generated a
reasonable amount of significant local discussion, not to.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Mention national discussion. What was the result of your survey?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
So I guess the sentiment is that, probably, like AIR membership,
which is reasonably diverse and presents a range of perspectives
on the development, the sentiment of the survey is it
pretty much the same. It's quite diverse. There are definitely
those who want it, and they're diferentely those who don't,
but most of them have indicated that it would They

(01:38):
don't see it that it would impact their business or
their business economy in Warnaka.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Is it fair to suggest it's not McDonald's. It's the
Mount Iron Country rural town thing, right, So if they
park themselves somewhere else, they might have got away with it.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I think that that is definitely the basis of the
resource content for the decline of the application. So there's
the basis of that. Whether or not if they applied
somewhere else, whether the town would have responded differently, as
I guess, it's unknown, but it's certainly a significant contributor
to the to the opinion of the community.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Have you ever had a groomer's shake?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, what it's that?

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, well that's what they sell. Apparently it's a purple
shake at the moment. I've just looked it up the
other day, but I've met no one who's had one. Joe,
nice to talk to. You appreciate it. Joe Liameth, who's
the what's that? No, what's that? Wanaka Business Chamber board chair?
As I mentioned earlier on, they've got option two an
option three which doesn't involve Mount Iron apparently. For more
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(02:44):
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