POLITICAL opponents of globalised commerce and of the so-called mono-culture of the internationally-spread corporate symbols that accompanies it may be heartened by the planning recommendation to ban burger colossus McDonald's from having its famous 'golden arches' "M" sign on its proposed new drive-thru in the Ribble Valley.

But, surely, such animus has no part in the issue as a small East Lancashire district council's planning and development committee meets tonight to consider the mammoth multinational's project for a new restaurant off the A59 Whalley-Clitheroe by-pass at Barrow.

It is simply a matter of taste.

And that officers are recommending councillors to approve the scheme, but at the same time refuse consent for the drive-thru to be identified by a 6ft-high McDonald's "M" atop a 23ft pole, is, surely, right.

The same applies to their view that "M" signs on the restaurant's roof -- a common feature of all McDonald's drive-thrus -- should not be allowed.

For the crux of the issue is not what the restaurant is, but where it will be -- in the heart of an area known in planning jargon as of high landscape value and, in plain terms, as beautiful countryside. And famous as the McDonald's symbols may be in myriad locations across the world, here in the Ribble Valley they would be garishly out of place.

And, worse, if allowed, they would set a precedent for visually-intrusive roadside advertising and signs to clash with the Ribble Valley's special environment.

It is this that needs protecting -- and councillors must look to that duty tonight. It may be that mighty McDonald's would have to set up one of the few drive-thrus in their global chain without the famous "M" symbols at the entrance.

But they are big enough and well-recognised enough already to absorb the loss without harm -- while the Ribble Valley cannot so easily suffer the loss to its environment that these signs would symbolise and encourage more of.