Plans to construct a new-to-sector filling station on the Norfolk coast are hanging in the balance after the Health and Safety Executive recommended the project not go ahead due to an underground gas pipeline in the vicinity.
Real estate investment firm FPC Income and Growth is hoping to build a four-pump-island forecourt, plus a drive-through coffee shop, a McDonald’s and an eight-bay EV charging hub to create a new service area in Caister-on-Sea, a village to the north of Great Yarmouth.
But the project has run into difficulties after the Health and Safety Executive advised Great Yarmouth Borough Council not to rubber-stamp the plans, saying “there are sufficient reasons on safety grounds for advising against the granting of planning permission in this case”.
The pipeline itself is a 12-inch high-pressure gas line connecting Bacton Gas Terminal (which handles a third of the UK’s gas supply) to Great Yarmouth Power Station, with Caister-on-Sea sitting between these two facilities.
The HSE says the pipeline, which runs underneath the field on which the services would be built, presents a “major hazard” that could cause “serious consequences for people in the vicinity” were it to be breached.
While Great Yarmouth does not have to follow the agency’s recommendation, if the council goes against it and grants permission, the HSE will have 21 days to consider whether to ask the Secretary of State for Housing to intervene.
