23/11/2025
I know I shouldn't really be posting this on Facebook, but, I feel, as an incredibly stressed out business owner trying to earn an honest living and getting through the copious amounts of work we have when everything is going right, when things go wrong or a certain fast food chain moves in next door and causes you more problems then I feel now is the time to let social media do its thing.
As many of you will be aware, the former Richard Nash car sales site on Mousehold Lane has recently turned into a McDonald's restaurant. From what I can gather, nobody wanted it. It went to appeal at the council 3 times before it finally got approved. Someone obviously took a nice little pay out for that. The residents were told it wouldn't be 24 hours, suddenly, out of nowhere, 24 hour approval was given. Another nice little pay out for someone one can assume!
On a personal level, I don't rate McDonald's, think it's cheap junk for the masses and massively overhyped. But, I don't actually really care too much about it being there.
My problem with them stems from the restaurant being built. Again, many of you will be aware we suffered a power outage in the summer that affected my business for almost 2 full days. We made £30 on the first day and somehow muddled through on the second to get as much work done as possible to keep customers happy and make sure we could actually make some money to keep going. I had to call out an electrician at my own expense to get my power back up and running. He then proceeded to take readings of power coming into the building and even isolated the building to prove that the building or anything in it wasn't the problem. He suspected it was the new joint the contractors had done as they had to move my electricity feed to make way for the fast food giant.
This is where it starts getting fun! As you can imagine, a small, independent, local vehicle repair shop trying to get anywhere with anyone at McDonald's to own up and have the problem looked at and solved whilst the joint was still easily accessible before they buried it under tarmac, was not easy. In fact, no one paid any attention to me, I hassled, I made phone calls, I sent emails... no one was interested or able to help. They finally sent 2 of their own electricians round 2 days before site completion to test, and guess what, apparently all was fine! Must have been a one off they said. I was not impressed or convinced, asked for a copy of their report, which, surprise surprise, hasn't materialised. Somehow, I have not had any more issues... until Friday 21st November. Mid afternoon, raising a vehicle up on our 2 post lift, ramps and sockets all die. The vehicle on the ramp was meant to be serviced and the customer needing it back by 16:30.
I tried everything, again, to no avail. Landlord, who still has contacts high up to whom he sold the land, not interested. Phoned the project manager of the site who is claiming to do all he can to help, tells me to contact UK power network. As luck would have it, UKPN were on site switching over to the new substation. Asked them to take a look, surprise surprise, they are only responsible for the wiring into the cabinet, anything after that is not their responsibility. All I have heard for months is no one is responsible for my power issues. Someone has to be responsible and I will not stop until someone is held responsible and fixes their c**k up. In the almost 17 years of being in this workshop I have never had any electrical issues at all. McDonald's come along, move my feed and I've lost power twice in 4 months. Coincidence? Not at all!
So, how does this affect you, the customers. Well, Friday wasn't exactly going smoothly as it was prior to the power going out, I was already going to be behind now I'm even further behind. I'm asking all of our customers to remain patient with us while we work through back log, and, if you would be so kind as to like and share this as much as you can so we can get as much attention as possible. Hopefully, someone might listen!
