A NEW McDonald’s ‘drive-thru’ fast food restaurant is to open at Chelston before Christmas.

The single-storey restaurant will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, bringing 65 jobs to the town, equivalent to 45 full-time workers.

It occupies a near-acre plot at Westpark 26, immediately opposite the Shell petrol station and Budgens convenience store.

An application for the restaurant was approved by planners at the end of April and the building has gone up in less than four months.

Reaction was mixed when it was announced that McDonald’s was looking to build a ‘drive-thru’ restaurant earlier this year.

County and Wellington town councillor John Thorne felt the location at Chelston would not help the town centre in Wellington ‘which has been one of the council’s top priorities in the last few years’. However, he welcomed the new jobs McDonald’s would bring to the area.

McDonald’s, on the other hand, said the drive-thru should be seen as complementary to existing operators in the town centre.

Westpark 26 has become a prime site for businesses because of its closeness to the M5. In recent years planners have allowed a Costa, Budgens, Subway, Anytime Fitness gym, Shell petrol station and the new Wellesley Hospital extension to be built there.

A number of smaller commercial traders also occupy units on the site.