Atlas Retailers, which operates 17 forecourts and is targeting 100, has been refused permission to open a filling station in Bradford on a 24-hour basis.
The firm’s Texaco site on Leeds Road currently opens from 7am to 11pm, and back in February Atlas applied to City of Bradford council to extend these hours.
That application was refused after the council determined 24-hour opening would “increase levels of noise and general disturbance” at the site, with concerns that nearby residents would be negatively affected were permission granted.
Atlas went back to the drawing board and in July applied again for permission to make the site permanently open, conducting a noise impact assessment and noise management plan, with the latter proposing to not have site deliveries scheduled for after 11pm, with the jet wash closed at 10pm, and signs erected asking customers to keep noise to a minimum.
This application has also been refused, however, with the council’s planning officer saying that “the same issues and concerns previously raised still apply”.
The officer added that despite the proposed controls, making the site a 24-hour one would “still result in residential amenity harm from the noise of the equipment associated with the petrol filling station and shop and the late-night comings and goings of customers and vehicles entering and leaving the site”.
