McDonald’s
Securing planning consent in increasingly contested local environments
How we helped
Industry
Client
McDonald’s
Our role
Cavendish works closely with McDonald’s development and communications teams to deliver integrated planning communications and stakeholder engagement programmes for new restaurant proposals across the UK and Ireland.
Our work combines political intelligence, local stakeholder engagement, digital campaigning and supporter mobilisation to strengthen the environment around planning decisions.
Alongside consultation programmes and political engagement with local decision makers, we develop locally tailored messaging and digital campaigns designed to build visible community support, challenge misinformation and strengthen understanding of the economic and employment benefits associated with new restaurants.
We also support planning committee engagement and local advocacy, helping secure approvals in politically sensitive locations, including schemes facing officer recommendations to refuse.
The challenge
As local planning environments become more politically and socially contested, major consumer brands face growing scrutiny around development, traffic, health, town centres and local economic impact.
For McDonald’s, sustaining growth across the UK and Ireland depended not simply on securing planning permission, but on successfully navigating fragmented local stakeholder environments shaped by community sentiment, local politics, digital campaigning and organised opposition.
The business needed to strengthen local legitimacy around new restaurant proposals, build visible community support and improve planning outcomes across politically sensitive sites.
The impact
Our work has helped support successful planning outcomes across more than 100 development sites throughout the UK and Ireland.
The programme has reached more than 50,000 stakeholders and generated over 5,000 formal letters of support for planning applications, helping demonstrate broad community backing for new restaurant proposals.
The campaign has also helped secure planning approvals against officer recommendations to refuse in multiple politically sensitive cases, strengthening McDonald’s ability to sustain growth across complex local planning environments.
