ERA welcomes PA’s refusal of application for Attard fuel station

An application for a new fuel station in Attard was unanimously rejected by the Planning Authority board yesterday.

The proposed development would have seen a 3,000 square metre area on ODZ land in Mdina Road turned into a fuel station, replacing an existing facility in Valley Road, Msida.

The proposed development included autogas filling facilities, a car wash facility, tyre service garage, electric vehicles charging points, an ATM facility, three retail units, an office, underground storage areas and an underground parking space.

The case officer had recommended a refusal of the application, seeing that the proposed development would be located less than 500 metres from an existing fuel station. The architect had contested this, saying that the distance would increase to 510 metres due to the Central Link project.

The chairman of the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA), Victor Axiak, referred to the revised fuel stations policy, which is yet to be implemented, and which decreases fuel station size to a thousand square metres while increasing the minimum distance to 1.5 kilometres.

Attard residents objected to the proposal, saying that the development would be detrimental to the surrounding rural area.

In a statement, the ERA welcomed the PA board’s decision. “The ERA is pleased and welcomes the decision for refusal that the PA board has opted for, in view of its clear stand that the loss of potentially good quality agricultural land and of protected trees should not happen in order to accommodate a fully-fledged commercial enterprise. The ERA was adamant that the proposed development is objectionable in principle, as it would contribute to urban sprawl at the expense of farmland and mature indigenous trees.”