The developers behind a plan to build a bio-fuel filling station for lorries on green fields just off the Commonhead Roundabout have asked again whether they need to make an ecological report.

Environmental Impact Assessments are a common feature of planning applications- and it is not unusual for a developer to ask a planning authority, in this case Swindon Borough Council, whether they need to include one in their application.

CNG Fuels has put in an application for permission to build a refuelling station for lorries on Purley Road, just off the Commonhead Roundabout on the south eastern border of Swindon proper.

Having been told in February that it would have to provide an impact assessment, the company has gone back to Euclid Street planners to ask again.

The new application says that there have been changes made to the full application.

Although it was submitted in January, the organ application is not available on the borough council’s website – but CNG fuels says the plans include:

Installation of 12. new fuel dispenser islands supported by a plant compound to contain three. compressors, ground gas storage units, air coolers, a trailer bay with space for two HGVs

There would also be two parking spaces with electrical vehicle chargers. And the laying of a new road surface comprising asphalt, concrete and loose gravel.

The company says there would be new planting and soft landscaping including floating wetlands within a balancing pond, tree, shrub and hedgerow planting.

The fuel dispensed is described by the company as “biomethane” and the company says that is: “A sustainable and 100 per cent renewable gas produced from food, water and animal waste.

“Nationwide, large numbers of distribution and logistics operators are looking to replace their legacy diesel vehicle fleets with HGVs run on sustainable and renewable biofuel.”

The site is to the south of the B4192 Purley Road which runs from the Commonhead Roundabout to Liddington and the company’s plans say the existing access road will be widened and a one-way system will be set up to lorries do not have to reverse during the refuelling process.

While a decision on the new EIA screening application has not been made, the local Ridgeway ward member Councillor Gary Sumner is of the view that an impact assessment should be included.

He told planning officers: “I cannot see that this is significantly different from the previous request. This is industrial development within the designated National Landscape on a road with farmland on both sides of the road and within 50 metres of a watercourse.”

Cllr Sumner is defending his Ridgeway seat at the local elections on Thursday May 2. Also standing in Ridgeway are Labour’s Stephen Allsop and Liz Mearns for the Liberal Democrats.