Gosport decision will please the lazy everywhere

Perhaps that is marginally unfair to the bearded ones staring into their laptops or tablets because they love to hang out IN coffee shops.

No, what Starbucks has done is play into the hands of those either too fat, too lazy or who simply couldn’t care less about walking a few yards from their cars to sit in a cafe and consume a hot drink.

Oh no, this particular coffee corporation has seen fit to jump on the drive-through (yes, please let’s ditch the ugly, American ‘thru’) fad so beloved of fast food conglomerates.

Starbucks has been successful at Gosport in convincing a government inspector that one of these shops would be a great asset to the town.

Some people think it’s too close to a children’s park, that it will create too much additional traffic; others that it will mean the swallowing up of a green space. Yet some see the extra jobs this place would bring as being of real benefit.

But does anyone, at any time in the planning process, stop and think, ‘hang on, we are encouraging people to sit in their cars and be served with a hot drink which they can take away and (as we will all have witnessed) drink it while on the move’?

Of course they don’t.

And whatever was wrong with sitting in a cafe, sipping coffee while gossiping with another human being?

Unfortunately, market forces and fashion will always dictate what does and doesn’t get built whether we approve or not.

The sad thing is that Starbucks ever considered a drive-through in the first place. It’s not its fault. It’s today’s must-have-everything-on-a-plate-and-then-gift-wrapped society that’s to blame.