Four planning applications for forecourt expansions in Northern Ireland all turned down in the same week.
Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council’s Planning Committee refused four applications for forecourt developments at a meeting earlier this week.
The Committee considered the demolition of 6 Station Road, Doagh, and the extension of the Eurospar shop there as well as increased car parking spaces and EV charging.
Another application was at Maxol Service Station in Newtownabbey, where they wanted to partially demolish and extend the supermarket to add extra retail space, a deli and internal seating. On the forecourt itself, they wanted to reduce the forecourt canopy from three to two islands, move the car wash and add EV charging.
At the Maxol Filling Station in Grange of Mallusk, they had applied to amalgamate the hot food unit with the forecourt shop meaning a reconfiguration of the internal floorspace, including a new lobby.
In addition, an application was considered for a mixed-use development comprising a petrol filling station, local neighbourhood supermarket and a care home near Holly Manor in Glengormley.
All four applications were turned down because the Council said they were contrary to the policy provisions within the Belfast Urban Area Plan, the draft Belfast Metropolitan Area Plan and the provisions of the Strategic Planning Policy Statement relating to retailing. Specifically it was said that in each case the scale of the development would “exceed day-to-day local shopping and it has not been demonstrated that a development of the scale proposed will not have a detrimental impact on the existing local, district and town centres”.
