A planning application for a petrol station at an Asda supermarket in Newport has been rejected, but at the same meeting Morrisons was granted permission for a filling station at its supermarket despite an 860-strong petition against it.
Council planners recommended the Asda scheme was refused because it was not in keeping with the area’s architecture – in the Lower Dock Street Conservation Area, which contains remaining Grade II listed early 19th century cattle market buildings – and councillors rejected the plan to build the station at the Pill store by seven votes to three.
The plan was also rejected because the position of the station would have meant the plan for a hotel to be built across the road would be made “impossible”. Planning permission for the hotel remains until July 13, 2015.
Representations from the supermarket said it has underperformed since it opened and that they had been strongly against Morrisons’ application to open in Newport in 2011. They said the lack of a petrol station would only reduce their expectations in how the store might perform in the future.
Morrisons was granted permission to build a filling station in the car park of its supermarket in Spytty earlier in the meeting.
Eight hundred and sixty people signed a petition against the opening of another petrol station in Newport, and there were 17 other objections to the proposal submitted to the council, but councillors voted seven to three in favour of the plan.
The station will cover 5,000 square metres on the supermarket’s car park and will be situated 30 metres away from housing.
No comments yet