Fast-food giant McDonald's has had to scrap plans for a new drive-through restaurant in Colchester.

The land at Turner Rise, earmarked to become the fast-food chain's fourth restaurant in the town, will now become a self-storage depot.

The new restaurant, planned for the "teardrop" site bordered by Turner Road, Mile End Road and Bruff Close, was given the green light by Colchester Council just over a year ago.

But having won planning permission, the site has now been sold to warehousing firm the Big Yellow Self-Storage Company.

McDonald's was left high and dry after the developer of the plot in Turner Rise changed hands, leaving the fast-food giant without a contract and without the chance of creating a new restaurant there.

A spokeswoman for McDonald's said yesterday (Tuesday): "We are not able to progress any further. We did have planning consent but the developer changed.

"We had no contract with the new developer, so we had to pull out. But we are always looking for new opportunities.

A spokesman for Big Yellow said there would be about 45,000 sq ft of storage space, with about 6,000 sq ft given over to office space.

He said: "We are hoping to get planning consent in the next couple of weeks and we should then have people on site in the next few months. We are hoping to open for business in spring next year. Big Yellow has stores around the UK and offers self-storage areas ranging in size from about ten sq ft to about 500 sq ft, which can be locked with customers' own locks.

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