General News
13 May, 2026
Council rejects 24-hour service station over health and safety fears
NORTHERN Grampians Shire councillors have unanimously rejected a controversial proposal for a 24-hour Mobil service station on Stawell’s Western Highway frontage, siding with residents after an emotionally charged debate centred on children’s health, road safety and the impact of intensive commercial development beside homes.
The decision came despite council officers recommending the development be approved, and despite no objections being lodged by referral authorities including the Department of Transport and Planning and Environment Protection Authority, subject to conditions.
Instead, councillors voted to refuse the permit after delivering unusually forceful arguments against the proposal, repeatedly returning to the proximity of homes — including one family with an eight-month-old baby living metres from the proposed diesel bowsers.
The application for 61-71 Longfield Street sought approval for a major new highway service station incorporating four multi-product fuel dispensers, three diesel pumps, a 200-square-metre shop, underground fuel tanks holding 90,000 and 110,000 litres of fuel, illuminated signage, landscaping and altered highway access arrangements.
The proposed station would have operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
While the site sits within a Commercial 2 Zone on the Western Highway corridor, the proposal drew 15 objections from nearby residents concerned about noise, traffic, fumes, light spill, groundwater contamination and the growing concentration of service stations through central Stawell.
Cr Jenny Greenberger, who moved the refusal motion, framed the debate as one that went beyond technical planning compliance and struck at the broader responsibility councillors hold to the people living nearby.
“As councillors, we are in that very difficult position of being a level of government that requires us to implement the law, and thus our planning scheme is the measure by which we need to judge these particular planning applications,” she said.
“However, on the other hand, councillors are elected by their constituents to represent their best interests.”
Cr Greenberger said her overriding concern was the potential health impact of a round-the-clock fuel operation immediately adjacent to homes.
The council agenda included EPA advice outlining typical risks associated with service stations, including petroleum emissions releasing volatile organic compounds into surrounding air if not properly managed.
Cr Greenberger said she was troubled the EPA had not specifically assessed the individual site.
“I’m sure it is correct that modern service stations generally don’t pose a health risk to users or to those who reside 50 to 100 metres away,” she said.
“But I cannot accept that a residential backyard, which is only 10 metres away from diesel bowsers, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, does not pose a health and safety risk.”
Her comments shifted the debate from planning language into something far more personal.
“What is more concerning is that the closest residents to these bowsers is a young family with an eight-month-old baby,” she said.
“As a council representative of her community, I cannot, in all conscience, ignore that fact.”
The proposal site backs onto residential properties via Little Cooper Lane and also borders homes to the east.
Underlying much of the debate was whether a planning zone intended for highway-oriented commercial activity should automatically outweigh the lived reality of residents whose back fences would sit metres from a 24-hour fuel facility.
Cr Karen Probst argued strongly that it should not.
“A service station is not a permitted use under that zone. It requires a permit, and there are lots of other commercial uses that it could be used for,” she said.
“So just because someone owns a house there doesn’t mean that they’re acquiescing to there being a service station there at some time in the future.”
Cr Probst also challenged suggestions that odour and amenity impacts could simply be engineered away.
“I live across the road from a service station,” she said.
“You do smell them, you really can’t mitigate much against that, except you get used to it.”
She said the debate ultimately came down to the role elected councillors were meant to play.
“If we’re not going to look at the impact on the residents, well, we need to look at the impact on the residents next to us,” she said.
“Otherwise, we’re just a puppet making thing ticking boxes for the government, and that’s something I refuse to do.”
Road safety concerns also featured heavily in the debate.
Cr Jack Blake, who seconded the refusal motion, said he travelled the stretch of highway daily and believed the proposed location posed risks to motorists.
“As an elected person in this shire, I think accountability is a big, huge thing here, and we’re looking at children’s health,” he said.
“I just think the position of where this service station would be, as a road user, is dangerous as well.”
Mayor Karen Hyslop, who chaired the meeting, also spoke in support of the refusal after noting councillors had examined research around recommended separation distances between service stations and homes in other Australian jurisdictions.
“The families should come first,” she said.
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