Proposals from EG On The Move to knock down and rebuild a forecourt in Ipswich, Suffolk, have hit a snag after the Environment Agency objected to the firm’s planning application over groundwater contamination concerns.
EGOTM is seeking permission from Ipswich Borough Council to comprehensively redevelop its Woodbridge Road site, demolishing the forecourt and its shop and installing a new facility, with the project including the removal of six 25,000-litre underground fuel tanks, which the firm wants to replace with a pair of 75,000-litre ones.
But the Environment Agency has objected to the plans, telling the firm that it has found “the level of risk posed by this proposal to be unacceptable”.
The authority details that EGOTM’s application “fails to provide assurance that the risks of pollution are understood”, highlighting that the site sits in a Groundwater Source Protection Zone due to a Secondary A Aquifer resting over 12 metres beneath it.
Such aquifers are not man-made storage facilities, instead comprising earth and lower strata that store groundwater that eventually ends up in the local water supply.
The Agency argues that as a result, “any spills or leaks have the potential to unacceptably contaminate groundwater and the nearby watercourse”, and the risk of digging up and replacing the existing tanks “is likely to be incompatible with the environmental sensitivity of the site”.
As a result, the authority is asking EG On The Move to carry out a “detailed risk assessment” considering matters such as groundwater flow.
The Agency says it would “favour above-ground tanks with very robust pollution prevention measures instead of underground storage tanks”, and notes that in environmentally sensitive locations, it expects standards “to be in excess of those in the Blue Book”, the set of rules that governs forecourt design, construction, decommissioning and maintenance.
