Plans for a new 24-hour, drive-through McDonald’s near Tice’s Meadow are back on the menu after the company lodged an appeal against last year’s refusal.

Guildford Borough Council rejected the proposal last July, turning down an application to build the outlet on land just north of the petrol station in Blackwater Valley Road, Tongham.

The council said the development would be harmful to the countryside location, erode the corridor between Aldershot and Ash and common, and result in an “unacceptable functional reduction and loss of land within the Site of Nature Conservation Importance” (SNCI).

Now both sides are preparing for another round in the planning process.

The group which runs Tice’s Meadow said it was reviewing the appeal documents — 61 new submissions running to hundreds of pages — and would “will likely raise further objection as well as encourage the local community to consider also objecting”.

Local resident Mark Elsoffer, who launched a petition against the development when it was first proposed in 2023, said he was “surprised” that McDonald’s had decided to appeal.

He said: “The planning officer’s reasons for refusal were watertight and it didn’t even go to planning committee. Now we will rally the local community together and get in touch with the local politicians asking them to reiterate their opposition to the plans. We have already had a lot of offers of support coming in.

“It’s a completely inappropriate place to have a large, drive-through outlet. It is in the SNCI and the strategic gap between built-up areas and it will have an impact on wildlife.

“In fact, McDonald’s found water voles in that stretch of the Blackwater River. Water Voles were thought to have gone extinct in Surrey so the fact that there are some here should surely stop any development.”

McDonald’s has set out its case in a simplified online prospectus, stating that the proposals would “regenerate what is currently an unused site” east of Tice’s Meadow and that the company “would be a sensitive neighbour, with a boundary of native woodland adjacent to the meadows, as well as a habitat conservation area to the north of the McDonald’s site”.

Farnham and Waverley Cllr Mark Merryweather said: “Guildford Borough Council refused the plans with good reason last July and I was sad to see that McDonald’s have appealed.

“I would rather they made improvements to the green space at the top of the site and then handed it over to someone to maintain while they build a McDonald’s somewhere else. In any case, there’s another branch very close – it’s probably quicker to walk there than drive in and park the car.

“It’s hard to second-guess why they are doing this but it may be that they are thinking about how busy the branch next to the KFC gets near the A323 and A331 junction, so trying to relieve the pressure there. If that is the case, find another site and do it better.”

Comments can also be submitted directly to the Planning Inspectorate (appeal reference 6002913) via its website or by post to The Planning Inspectorate, Temple Quay House, 2 The Square, Bristol, BS1 6PN. All comments must be received by March 10.

Anyone wishing to comment on the appeal can do so via Guildford Borough Council’s website by entering planning application reference 23/P/01831. Comments must be submitted by March 10.

There is also a petition opposing the development on www.change.org under the title ‘Stop McDonald’s at Tice’s Meadow’.

McDonald’s has been approached for comment.