Drivers lobby for cafe
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by Derren Hayes • More than 3,000 lorry drivers have signed a petition to try and stop a local council closing down a popular roadside cafe in Yorkshire.
Barnsley Council wants to stop Wendy's Cafe trading from Wentworth Park Industrial Estate just off the MI near Barnsley following complaints that it is preventing businesses moving to the area and causing traffic problems.
Next month the council is to decide whether to prohibit roadside trading on the estate on the grounds that if the four-year-old cafe is closed it would increase the chances of companies moving there.
More than 100 truckers a day use the award-winning service, some from the Continent. Ivor Wheatfield, who runs the cafe with Wendy Green, says: "Truckers are the mainstay of our custom and a lot of people from all over the country take detours to get to us—we even serve millionaires regularly." Wheatfield says companies on the estate only started complaining when McDonalds opened next to the cafe.
He believes the high cost of locating on the estate is the real reason firms are not moving there.
If the council succeeds Whitfield is considering complaining to the council ombudsman or applying for a judicial review.
This is the latest of several cases of roadside cafes being threatened with closure. During the summer the Welsh Office tried closing 10 unlicensed tea vans, and the Highways Agency rebuilt laybys in Leicestershire to make them too small for mobile vans to operate.