Decision already made?

I think in practice the decision is already made. I hope I'm very wrong, but here's my reasoning.
When the land was purchased by a McDonalds-related company, the residents had already lost the fight. The simple fact now is that the company can just sit and wait for this application to be approved for years if required, while the residents are forced to stare at the current abomination of a site.
McDonalds are implicitly saying either approve this application, or have this derelict site in the middle of your town. What a choice!
Since the site is in such a state of disrepair and has no barriers to entry, the council should force demolition on public safety grounds, independent of this application's success. That way the residents can look at an empty site and say what they really want there. 

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