Tribunal confirms rejection of Rabat road petrol station

The Planning Authority’s appeals tribunal (EPRT) has confirmed a 2019 decision refusing a permit for a 3,000sq.m fuel station on the Rabat Road, in the vicinity of the St Mary of Victories chapel.

The fuel station, proposed by Ludwig Camilleri, had been rejected a year before the approval of a new policy banning new fuel stations on agricultural land, and which limited their size to 1,000sq.m outside the development zones.

The Rabat Road refusal was due to a breach of the policy banning new petrol stations within 500m of existing fuel stations.

In an appeal filed by lawyer and former PA chief Ian Stafrace, Camilleri disputed the refusal, saying the nearby Pit Stop fuel station in Attard was 510m away from his site, using the future configuration of the Central Link road project.

While recognising that the distance between the two stations had been “somewhat extended” by the Central Link, this did not reflect the situation when the fuel station was refused, just a week after the approval of the Central Link project. The EPRT pointed out that the roads project had not even been officially published and works still had not even commenced. Calculating the exact distance between the two stations required the conclusions of the works, which was impossible at the time of the decision. By the time the Central Link works were concluded, the fuel station policy had been replaced by a more stringent one.

Camilleri also disputed another reason given for refusing the petrol station, being its location within 300m of a groundwater source. He referred to another permit for a fuel station, approved in 2018 in breach of this policy requirement, for the Bilom Group outside development zones on Qormi Road near the Water Services Corporation.

The EPRT confirmed the permit was in breach of the policy banning fuel stations in the vicinity of groundwater sources, but said this was insufficient to overrule the policy requirements Camilleri was obliged to follow.

It also said it would not consider new plans downsizing the petrol station and locating it further away from groundwater sources, being that it was within the 500m distance from the Pit Stop petrol station.

Camilleri acquired the Birkirkara petrol station licence in 2014 with the intention of relocating it to his property, outside development zones. After considering a site in Salina, deemed a non-starter by the Environment and Resources Authority, he requested permission for his land on the Rabat Road. The site had been emarked for a private cemetery in 2011, but this was precluded by a new policy in 2014.