PR representatives from the McDonald’s Corporation have repeatedly stated to the media that they have “very clear” support in Tecoma.

To test this statement, a door-knock survey was conducted in November/December 2012 to ask Tecoma residents over the age of 18 years one question:

“Are you for or against the proposed McDonald’s outlet in Tecoma?”

Every house in Tecoma was door-knocked. Households that were not home in the first instance were door-knocked a second time during the following fortnight.

1230 adult residents took part in the survey, which equates to 80% of the adult population of the small town.

Based on quantitative evidence, the survey results conclusively shows overwhelming community opposition:

88.2%  OPPOSE the proposed developement (1085 people)
7%       DIDN’T KNOW or stated that they DIDN’T CARE (86 people)
4.8%    were FOR the proposed development (59 people)

Names, addresses and signatures were obtained from all adult residents who stated their opposition to the development in order to further validate these findings. We welcome and encourage any independent market research companies who may wish to repeat the survey process to verify the data collected.

We also welcome the McDonald’s Corporation to review these findings, and the names, addresses and signatures obtained, and encourage them to release the findings of their own phone survey of Tecoma residents that they conducted prior to the VCAT hearing. These findings have never been released by McDonald’s, despite requests from the community that they do so, and were not used as evidence in their VCAT case. We wonder why the McDonald’s Corporation would withold this information from the public if it in fact verifies their claims of the “very clear” support they claim to have in Tecoma?