A privately funded truck stop and service station planned for Oatlands has been rejected by Southern Midlands Council, despite receiving the ticks of approval from State Growth and council planners.
Tas Petroleum had proposed a 24/7 facility at the corner of Midland Highway and Interlaken Road, featuring fuel sales and EV charging along with showers, toilets and rest areas specifically designed for truck drivers.
The company said the site, set to cost the Tasmanian-owned business $6-7 million, would have filled a critical 105-kilometre gap in heavy vehicle rest infrastructure between Kempton and Epping Forest.
“We’ve now gone through 18 months of planning and we had to justify to State Growth why it was safe,” Tas Petroleum general manager Nathan Thurlow told Pulse.
“State Growth has signed it off and don’t have an issue with it.”
“Council don’t have an issue with it because State Growth are okay with it,” he said – referencing the recommendation to councillors by Southern Midlands Council planners to approve the development.
“Yet it’s been argued by five councillors that in their opinion, who are uneducated on this, it’s unsafe.”
Councillors voted 5-2 against the proposal on Tuesday, with concerns raised about traffic safety, competition with the existing Oatlands BP and potential impacts on council-owned EV chargers at the town pool.
Councillor Tony Bisdee, who moved the rejection, said the proposal for the unmanned site offered no significant employment opportunities for locals and lacked deceleration and acceleration lanes on the 110km/h highway.
“There’s already a service station in Oatlands providing an excellent service,” Bisdee said.
“We will lose some patronage from our [EV charger] units at the pool down to this proposed station.”
Councillor Donald Fish, who revealed to Pulse he is the uncle of the BP proprietor but did not declare any conflict before voting against the proposal, said he saw no benefit from the new site for the town.
Fish, a former trucker himself, said the unmanned Tas Petroleum site would “cut down” on business for the BP and said facilities in Kempton and Mood Food served drivers adequately.
“[The downturn] could be considerable. This crowd was claiming to sell fuel ten cents a litre cheaper. But I just didn’t feel that there was much benefit to the town,” he told Pulse.
“I can’t see any reason why a truck would have to fuel up at Oatlands. I can’t see [a] huge benefit for the truck industry.”
The rejection has drawn criticism from the Tasmanian Transport Association, which had been calling for truck driver rest facilities in the Oatlands area as part of the state’s heavy vehicle driver rest area strategy.
“We know that that location, that region does need some better facilities, area for truck drivers to pull over, take mandatory rest breaks and to rest when they actually need them,” executive director Michelle Harwood told Pulse.
She said proper facilities were critical for driver safety and encouraging diversity in the industry.
“If you’re tired, you’re tired, you need to pull over immediately, as quickly as you possibly can,” she said.
State Growth confirmed it had approved the traffic safety aspects of the development.
“We accepted the advice of the Traffic Impact Assessment submitted by the developer that found the traffic impact on the Interlaken/Midland Highway junction is acceptable,” a spokesperson said.
Mayor Edwin Batt, who voted in favour of the proposal, acknowledged the division among councillors while defending the decision-making process.
“The councillors generally, I think, were concerned about large B-doubles coming onto a highway with 110 kilometre cars proceeding past it,” he said.
“I voted in favour of the proposal. It was the decision of council.”
He said there was “definitely a good reason for having the facility on the Midland Highway in that general vicinity.”
Tas Petroleum says it has already invested heavily in designing and gaining regulatory approvals for the site and plans to appeal the council’s decision in the tribunal.
