A planning application for a new seaside petrol station in Norfolk has been refused for being “plagued by severe, unresolved technical deficiencies across almost every material planning consideration”, including the proposed site being “dangerously close to a high-pressure gas pipeline”.
Developers FPC Income and Growth, a London-based property firm, had wanted to build a new roadside services comprising a four-pump-island forecourt with shop, two jet-wash bays, a drive-thru coffee shop, a McDonald’s and an eight-bay EV charging hub in in Caister-on-Sea, a village just north of Great Yarmouth.
In February this year the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advised Great Yarmouth Borough Council that it should refuse permission for the project over concerns about a 12-inch high-pressure gas pipeline running beneath the site and serving Great Yarmouth Power Station.
The HSE later changed its position upon learning the pipe was thick-walled, but the pipeline owners, RWE Generation, maintained their objection, citing a “heightened risk of major accidents during construction and operation”
In addition to concerns about the pipeline the council’s planning officer said the plans had “comprehensively failed to demonstrate that the development would be safe from flooding”.
The officer also described the site’s highways design as “fundamentally flawed”, advising it would create an “unsafe environment for pedestrians”, and that the services’ sole entry/exit point “conflicts dangerously with an existing highway junction”, with the layout likely to “encourage high-speed vehicle manoeuvres”.
The landscaping proposed for the project, meanwhile, was said to be “wholly insufficient to mitigate the fundamental harm caused by inserting a major roadside service area” into the location.
The officer concluded that “due to the sheer volume, severity, and fundamental nature of these material conflicts, the application is recommended for refusal.”
Great Yarmouth Borough Council followed the officer’s recommendation.
