An international burger giant has unveiled plans for its first restaurant to serve food around the clock near one of Kent’s largest shopping centres.

Burger King, which has 17 restaurants across the county, hopes to throw open its doors for business 24 hours a day at Westwood Cross in Broadstairs.

If the fast food juggernaut’s bid is successful, its Margate Road drive-thru will be in direct competition with an open-all-night McDonald’s on the same street.

The firm applied to Thanet District Council this week to extend the current opening hours from 10am to 10pm to midnight till midnight.

Alongside the McDonald’s drive-thru, the Burger King is also a stone’s throw from Tim Horton’s and Costa.

Based on a busy thoroughfare near the shopping centre bursting with household name brands, the restaurant, based in one of Thanet’s most central locations, hopes to draw customers from various areas across the district.

A decision will be made on the licensing bid, the second of its kind in south-east Kent in recent months, early next year.

In October, McDonald’s unveiled fresh plans to serve food 24 hours a day at its latest drive-thru in the pipeline for Kent.

The restaurant is set to be built at Stop 24 services off the M20 near Folkestone, as part of a larger expansion scheme, including a Costa.

Service station bosses claim the plans will help prevent crashes on one of Kent’s busiest motorways.

Owners Channel Ports said the new all-night fast food restaurant at junction 11 will “encourage drivers to take regular breaks” and “reduce potential risks for accidents”.

Elsewhere in the county, Burger King, the second-largest fast-food burger chain in the world behind only McDonald’s, was recently told to clean up its act.

Newly opened, its Tunbridge Wells branch was lately handed the lowest food hygiene rating of any of the chain’s branches in the country.

Having been open for a few months, it was heavily criticised for using “dirty and greasy” equipment.

A food hygiene inspector from the district council visited the fast-food outlet on August 30 and gave it a rating of one out of five, meaning “major improvements” were necessary.

The report said: “The probe thermometer that you are using for checking temperatures during cooking of food was dirty and greasy and therefore, is not being adequately cleaned and disinfected between uses.

“There is a risk of cross-contamination if the probe is used on food that is not fully cooked and then used again on a cooked or ready to eat food without adequate disinfection in between.”

But the borough council in October said the problems at the Mount Pleasant Road restaurant had been fixed, and the site has now been given a new five-star rating.

The firm has been contacted for comment regarding its Westwood Cross plans.