RESIDENTS have set up an official action group to fight McDonald's' plans to build a restaurant on their doorstep.

Villagers have formed a group called Residents Against McDonald's as part of their ongoing fight against the fast food chain building a drive-through on the old site of the White Blackbird pub in London Road, Loudwater.

Campaigners have been speaking out against the plans since they were first announced in early March and even organised a street protest.

Group spokesman Julie Hanif, 38, of Burfield Road, said: "We were quite disjointed before but now we have the structure of a professional working group, we will be able to get a lot more done."

Furious residents are also hoping that experts will prove that building such an outlet on an already busy main road will see the road becoming a hazard.

They hope that assessments carried out by traffic and environmental officers from Wycombe District Council and other environmental professionals will prove that the new restaurant will create traffic problems and so should not be allowed to go ahead.

Residents from nearby villages who held similar campaigns against McDonald's coming to their area will also be called in to offer advice to villagers.

Julie said McDonald's should think again if it believes villagers will sit back and wait for a decision to be made.

She said: "This is just another outlet to add to McDonald's' portfolio of hundreds. All they care about is profit margins. We are doing this to keep the quality of life that we should have a right to, and nothing more."

A McDonald's spokesman said that its own traffic assessment pointed to less than a one per cent impact on traffic on the London Road during peak times.

"We always work with the local community and support and initiate thousands of community projects involving education, sport and the environment," she added.

A website has been set up to keep the community informed and a village meeting has been called for Sunday at the Royal British Legion, Queensmead Road, in Loudwater.

Anyone who is concerned about the plan is welcome to attend.