Craig, I agree, they should do something. A day or so after the McDonalds opened in Penrith there was discarded packaging on the roadside, now all the rural roads and car parks out of town are littered with fast food wrappers. I'd make driver throughs write the registration number on all the items they sell, then if the driver litters the police know who to fine. It does show though how many scummy people live in this County, too lazy to dispose of their amazing health feast wrappers properly they throw them out of the window for some other person to clean up.

Every route you take out of the North of Carlisle is littered with discarded takeaway packaging with the bulk of it carrying the McDonalds livery. If it were up to me I would let them open 24 hours as long as they undertake to carry out DAILY patrols along these routes picking up the refuse that blights our beautiful county.

Some of the comments posted are unbelievable! I'm sure when McDonald’s Carlisle applied for longer opening hours, they didn’t realise what a tipping point it would be to solving all of the countries problems.

It would appear that if Carlisle City council deny this application, Carlisle, over night, will become litter free, the rise in obesity will plateau and road usage will fall. As an added benefit, young boys in their first cars will stop speeding and start to buy free range produce from locally owned suppliers AND throw all of their rubbish in the bin.

Thanks to the good people of Carlisle with their forethought and expertise, the rest of the country will learn from our example and, in turn, stop McDonalds being open such unsociable hours. From there the world will sit up and listen. Soon, Carlisle will be on the world stage as global obesity figures fall, our dependency on fossil fuel falls (remember road usage has dropped) and the world is free from litter. It happened here first!

There is another way to look at it and it is as follows. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?

x can someone tell me, i heard on facebook that Mc Donalds have banned people under 18 from eating in there restraunts x is it right or wrong

@Derek - Could not express this better myself, this evening at Pizza Hut next to B&Q the exact same thing happenened, a youth in a Vauxhall Corsa threw his rubbish out of the window. Less than 5 metres away was a clean and well maintained bin.

@JC - lack of bins isn't the problem - the problem is that the bins will not come up to the car window when a youth wants to jettison his empty packet, so the youth jettisons it anyway 'cos he's too fat and/or lazy to actually go to the bin, and the wrapping ends up on the floor.

Fred, the City Council has not made a decision or a comment. For the love of god.
MDs asked to extend their opening hours in 2011 and it was granted, they are asking to do it even further now.
The development control committee will consider it in due course like all applications.

Once again nothing good to come out of our City Council...

try making a sensible decision

Jim and BM
The reason I mention it is "Carlisle City Council suffocating growth" is because this is not McDonald's first application to extend their opening hours, hence why they have only asked for 5am to 1am, not 24 hours and asked for it on an "experimental 12 month period". If they are open 24 hours in Workington and Penrith do you think their original application in Carlisle was not to open 24 hours too????

If it creates a few more jobs, then why not? The issue of litter is of course a concern and of education and perhaps a little more enforcement but the noise argument is dubious at best.

And Jim is right: how can Carlisle City Council be blamed for anything on this matter when all that has happened is that they have been presented with an application. One wouldn't expect anyone on the licensing committee to say anything publicly (yet) would we?

Bone has one good point though in that Carlisle is behind many other places. Perhaps his was a roundabout plea to the City Council to become more dynamic in other areas...at least Jim is awake!