STS - Organise Your Task Force

Organise Your Task Force

First of all you will need to form a task force of key objectors who are willing to give up time, some money (cost of phone calls, letters etc.) and their lives (temporarily) to lead the campaign.

As you will see on our advice pages, your campaign should include the following:

Creating a political lobby and demonstrating strength of public opinion against the development.

Setting up a public relations and publicity machine for your campaign.

Getting to grips with how the planning system works and developing the case for refusal on planning grounds.

Understanding the political situation in your own area and leveraging it for your cause.

Why All This?

Doing any one of these in isolation is unlikely to win the case because:

There are financial risks to a council that backs you without strong planning grounds for refusal. Most won’t do it – and if they do then McDonald’s will take them to appeal. McDonald’s will then win the appeal and will ask for (and usually get) costs from your council. The appeal decision is final, so you will end up with a McDonald’s on your doorstep and you will have paid for their appeal via your local council tax!

If you have good planning grounds, but not much local support, many councils would be unwilling to take on one of the world’s largest and most litigious corporations. If votes aren’t at stake – they won’t take the risk!

These aspects are equally important – your power comes from using a combination of the tactics we suggest. Use them well. If you do any other successful activities not in our advice pages, please let us know so that we can include them for the benefit of other communities.

Organising Your Task Force

Give yourselves a name (and, even better, a logo as well).

Nominate key roles, who will lead on what aspects. For example, a Chair, Secretary, Press Officer etc. – whatever best suits your skills and situation. As you plan what needs to be done, it’s a good idea to share the work out with different people being responsible for different aspects. But you will need to co-ordinate, and expect to meet at least once a week for updates and continued planning.

If you know any local chartered surveyors, architects, civil engineers, lawyers, try to recruit them because you will need their skills and advice (the first three understand planning, and will be invaluable to you). Don’t worry if you don’t find any straight away, most groups find someone in their community after a while or know someone who knows someone. There are also free advice centres for these aspects in many areas, for example, Planning Aid for London. So don’t worry if you don’t have the skills in your own group, find out what’s available in your area.

Don’t expect more than a handful of key people at the beginning, you will probably get more people as time goes on and your campaign gathers momentum. All good campaigns have to start somewhere!

Networking

Contact and network with other communities via Stop The Store. Great for moral support – and you may find others who have ideas that you haven’t thought of. Keep in touch with what’s happening at McDonald’s generally via McSpotlight. Join the McLibel mailing list to receive news about McDonald’s and its activities.