Land for animal husbandry not precluded for petrol station relocation under amended rules

Amendments to revised fuel policy: urban pumps not smaller than 1,000 sq.m can relocate outside development zones unless land has agricultural value

1 August 2019, 12:18pm
by James Debono

2 min read

Creeping fuel stations: the fields where a proposed supermarket and petrol station will be built are outside the Burmarrad development zone, at the edge of the village, and on land that is of agricultural value

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The draft revision for the controversial fuel policy rules, has been tweaked to allow greater leeway for the relocation of large urban pumps which occupy 1,000 square metres of land.

Under the amended revision, which has to be discussed in the House committee for the environment, these large urban pumps can be relocated to sites outside development zones, of an equivalent amount of land.

But their relocation is still banned “on agricultural land as defined by the Agricultural Advisory Committee” – the committee within the Planning Authority. No reference was previously made to this committee in the previous draft, which regularly advises the PA on agricultural issues.

One major issue in defining agricultural land is whether degraded land, which once served an agricultural purpose, also falls under this definition.

Crucially the revised draft makes does not specifically preclude the relocation of large urban petrol stations to abandoned infrastructure previously dedicated to animal husbandry. These may still be excluded if the Agricultural Advisory Committee defines these tracts as agricultural land.

On the other hand, as suggested in the first revision, petrol stations occupying less than 1,000 sq.m may still relocate to ODZ sites of up to 1,000 sq.m if these sites are not “related to agriculture and/or animal husbandry”.

The proposed policy will still apply to all pending applications after coming in place, after a second round of public consultation.

Unlike the present rules, the revised policy does not include the original ban on fuel stations being developed at a distance of 500m from an existing one.

The revised rules were drafted in May, and they explicitly banned urban fuel stations from being relocated to any site “related to agriculture and/or animal husbandry”.

The Planning Authority is currently reviewing the 2014 rules, which permitted the development of 3,000 sq.m petrol stations outside development zones.

James Debono is MaltaToday's chief reporter on environment, planning and land use issues, ...