Residents in the Nerrols Drive area of Taunton have received letters outlining the Touts’ plans for their latest forecourt development.
It’s a significant moment in their quest to get planning permission for the site, when you consider that initial plans for the development were registered in 2020.
Consent is being sought for a mixed-use development to create Nerrols Neighbourhood Centre, comprising a two-storey building with a 6,322sq ft convenience store and other commercial units on the ground floor. Two separate buildings on the site would provide 28 apartments plus there would be EV charging points and a petrol and diesel forecourt with canopy, landscaped parking area and community and public open space.
In their application, the Touts say there is an essential need for a local forecourt as existing provision is ‘poor’.
Some of Somerset Council’s officers had previously raised concerns about having a petrol station on the site but the Touts countered that its addition was essential in making the Local Centre ‘deliverable’. They submitted a viability statement to the council to this effect.
The viability assessment was undertaken as part of an amended scheme, in 2024, which reduced the number of flats to 28 and removed the originally proposed food production and despatch use.
The Council had the viability assessment independently reviewed and was advised that the petrol filling forecourt was “crucial to the viability of the scheme”.
“A petrol forecourt remains a use that is essential to the great majority of people’s day-to-day lives and fundamentally, providing this close to where people live, work and shop, is sustainable,” says the application.
“The urban extensions to Taunton increase demand for this facility and existing provision is poor in this north east quadrant of the town. There remains an unmet and growing need for a local forecourt facility. The nearest forecourt is at Priory Bridge Road, which is 2.1km from the nearest new home on the Nerrols development, the next nearest is at Asda on Toneway, this is a 2.5km drive. There is only one covering the whole of Taunton north of the railway line, which is 2.8km away on Greenway Road.”
The Touts say their petrol station could be more accurately described as a “multi-fuel forecourt,” which will provide a diversification of energy offerings to meet changing demand.
The application says the proposal actively encourages the essential shift to EVs through extensive charging infrastructure in a sustainable location. “The site is adaptable and will change to meet prevailing needs, the development will last a century at least and within the relatively early years of its life span, the proposed fuelling will change to either full EV or provide hydrogen facilities, but in the meantime, it is sustainable to meet existing fuelling needs, close to where people live, work and shop, reducing the need to travel,” it states.
To date there is one new objection to the plans, on the grounds of highway safety, congestion, risk to schoolchildren, noise/air pollution and waste.
