Dr David McDonald predicts community backlash against an amended proposal to build a McDonald’s restaurant on the corner of Greenmeadows and Ocean drives.

McDonald’s has asked Port Macquarie-Hastings Council to review the refusal of its proposal.

It lodged amended plans in support of the proposal.

The council’s Development Assessment Panel rejected the development application last year on traffic and safety grounds.

Dr McDonald said the proposal was simply inappropriate on the neighbourhood centre site.

“There will be a strong, concerted community response to this ... there is no question about it,” he said.

“For us, no the first time meant no.”

Dr McDonald said the situation was an assault on sensible planning laws.

The Port Macquarie paediatrician also is opposed to the restaurant’s location close to schools when there is an obesity epidemic.

He said the rules would eventually have to change, even though there was no mechanism for children’s health to be considered in the decision-making process.

When the development application was rejected last year, the panel’s independent chair, Paul Drake said the site was residentially zoned and that had priority, particularly in this area.

McDonald’s says it addressed the council’s concerns in its amendments.

A McDonald’s spokeswoman stressed owner-operators Brett and Jacqui Jones’ community contribution.

During the past 15 months, she said, they had contributed more than $60,000 to clubs, recreational and community groups and schools.

“They employ more than 350 people in Port Macquarie and inject about $750,000 a year in wages back into the community,” the spokeswoman said.

Concerned parents from Cairncross Pl said they valued the contributions McDonald’s made to the community and wholeheartedly supported any commercial business owner operating within a business zone.

“We do not approve of a large-scale commercial fast-food outlet like McDonald’s, the nation’s largest, selling burgers from our backyard,” they said.

They said the fear, stress and impact on the financial, physical, emotional and mental health of their children and families would be detrimental and drastically decrease their quality of life.