As the fuel stations policy review inches towards conclusion, plans for another facility on agricultural land in Burmarrad could be headed for approval.
The Planning Authority is scheduled to decide next Thursday on a proposal to ‘relocate’ a kerbside fuel station from the town centre to a field outside development zones on Triq Burmarrad.
The plans, which include a car wash, a retail outlet, offices and parking spaces, are recommended for approval despite the objections of the Environment and Resources Authority and the planning watchdog’s agricultural advisory committee.
The committee has certified that the land is of good quality and could potentially support an agricultural yield valued at about €27,000 a year.
The 2015 fuel stations policy specifically blocks relocations to good quality agricultural land.
However, the PA’s case officer said the land was not designated as an area of agricultural value and that the same policy allowed such a relocation in cases “where the community would benefit from the relocation” and where there were no “unacceptable adverse environmental concerns”.
The case officer also noted there were no suitable alternative sites for the relocation and that the developer had downscaled the fuel station footprint from 3,700 square metres to 2,400 and then to 1,700 square metres.
There is no valid justification for the further loss of undeveloped land
Environmental authorities have also sounded the alarm over the plans. When the application was first submitted, the Environment Protection Directorate (forerunner to the ERA) said the proposed development was not “simply a relocation to a safer location but is a major expansion ODZ with rather extravagant land take-up”.
In the latest assessment, the environment regulator said: “There is no valid justification for the further loss of undeveloped land outside the development zone boundary, along with the associated environmental impacts to accommodate such use.”
The application by Bonnici Stores Ltd was submitted in 2007. Two previous applications for a filling station and a fuel station on the same site had already been rejected in 1995 and 1997.
The PA’s latest decision comes amid a long-promised review of the controversial fuel stations policy, ordered by Environment Minister José Herrera in January 2018 to minimise the burden on agricultural land.
After months of delays, Dr Herrera and Planning Minister Ian Borg pledged to publish the revised document for public consultation this month.
Read: Petrol station relocations to ODZ could be allowed
However, a key proposal made by the ERA for the review – a ban on all new and relocated fuel stations ODZ – is unlikely to make it into the final policy, with Dr Borg suggesting recently that relocated stations would still be allowed.