Mid Suffolk District Council has refused a planning application from EG On The Move to install two totem signs at a controversial filling station on the A14 near Elmswell, Suffolk.
The forecourt operator had applied to install one 10-metre illuminated totem and one seven-metre sign at the site, but planners refused the development proposals, with the retailer coming in for criticism from councillors.
Planning permission for the Elmswell Services forecourt itself was initially refused in 2023, but EGOTM appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, and was subsequently granted permission to build the site, which opened in December 2024, while the firm was also awarded partial costs due to delays from the Mid Suffolk District Council during the process.
In January 2025 the forecourt was ordered to close over safety concerns relating to traffic using the site’s exit, but after continuing to operate the site received a ‘stop notice’ in February, and subsequently closed while remedial work was carried out.
Those improvements were completed and the forecourt subsequently reopened at the beginning of March this year, but the totems’ planning application saw EG On The Move face further run-ins with local authorities, after the firm’s application to install the totem signs brought accusations from one Green Party counicillor that the applicant was “showing no respect for planning rules and regulations from their previous history”.
The signs themselves were described as an “absolute hideous intrusion on the landscape” by another Green Party councillor according to the East Anglian Daily Times, while a summarised objection referenced by the Council said they were “akin to the Las Vegas strip” rather than the rural area in which the forecourt sits. Permission for both signs was unanimously refused.
