Service Station Move Allowed

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 8

Service Station Move Allowed

Straven Services, Ltd, which now has two kerbside pumps at 146 Straven Road, was successful yesterday in an appeal to the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board to establish a new service station at the corner of Idris Road and Blighs Road.

This decision was given by the board’s chairman (Mr J. W. Kealy, S.M.) after the board had inspected the new site, at present occupied by houses at 193 Idris Road and 64 Blighs Road. The specified departure in a residential zone was allowed mainly because of the unsatisfactory position at Straven Road, he said. Had the application been for a new station, instead of for a new site for an existing one, the appeal would have been disallowed.

For the company, Mr J. E. Ryan said that Mr R. R. Templeton was named as the appellant, as he would be the buyer of the houses, exercising his rights in favour of the company. The board was only too familiar with the efforts of the company to reestablish on a better location. Mr Kealy said it was unfortunate that the City Council had not given the board a proper statement of its objections. The council said that public interest was paramount, and the board agreed with that, but the council’s interpretation of public interest was contrary to the Act.

It was open to question, said Mr Kealy, whether the council had been justified in refusing jurisdiction.

Mr A. Hearn, for the council, said that it and other councils found difficulty, with laymen considering townplanning matters, to decide what the Act meant by public interest.

The statute said that a council could grant a specified departure only where there was little significance to the immediate vicinity. The council recognised the firm’s problem, and would be in favour of anything that could be done to change it: but the proposed move, in the council’s opinion, would have more than a little significance. Mr J. G. Hutchison, a director of the company, said that it had succeeded the Mortlock family, who in 1935 started the business. It was seven years since the company had tried to get approval to modernise its Straven Road premises.

Two appeals against Waimairi County Council refusals had been dismissed. Strong efforts had been made to get another site in the vicinity without success. The Ydris Road-Blighs Road site had eventually been found. At Straven Road, the firm

was selling 33,000 gallons of petrol a year, and this was not economic. The council licence for the kerbside pumps expired on December 31, and the council had indicated that permission would not be renewed. j

Mr Kealy said that while the board felt that it should not lightly throw petrol stations into residential areas, a broad view was desirable. A written decision would be issued, giving conditions.