​Service Station appeal – Decision in council favour – eventually!

You may recall the in June last year, Council refused a planning application for expansion to the servo at the corner of West Tamar Highway and Bridgenorth Road. The details are in my blog.

The developers appealed the decision and after nearly 12 months the Resource Management and Planning Tribunal has handed down its’ decision and have dismissed the appeal in other words, they have refused the development. It was an expensive exercise but it is important to remind everybody that the West Tamar Council will, if necessary, make hard decisions and back them up legally.

The grounds for the refusal can be read at:   
http://www7.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASRMPAT//2018/14.html

The main argument was the intensification – basically, if you have a development in a place where it shouldn’t be then you can expand it. There were physical increases -canopy size from 132m2  to  799m2 as well as increased opening times and most significantly an 83% increase in customer volume.

Personally, my biggest concern was traffic volumes and the intersection with Bridgenorth Road. If you have ever tried to leave the servo, heading to Launceston on a busy wet evening you would realise how dangerous it is.

I would like to see a roundabout here, that would solve the above problem (vehicles would exit onto Bridgenorth Road, then onto the roundabout) it would also solve the current issue whereby vehicles take the rat-run through Kavala St and down to the Acropolis drive roundabout to avoid the sometime slow and dangerous Bridgenorth Road intersection.     

Eventually the Highway there will be a 4 lane separated highway which will mean that the servo can only get customers who are travelling North – so surely a roundabout would be essential at that stage – but hopefully we can get one before then.
 

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