Bega Valley Shire Council group manager for planning and environment Andrew Woodley believed the development application was not made to attract leasers and would involve the demolishment of the current Caltex service station on the site.

“There is a fair deal of expense to put together an application such as this and I certainly expect it to proceed,” he said.

Consent was issued for the “demolition of existing service station and erection of new service station, car parking, landscaping and advertising signage”.

The approved signage is for Coles Express.

The applicant was Procon Developments, who Mr Woodley said are a large service station developer, acting on behalf of The Lawson Family Trust who owns the land.

“This is not uncommon, often Coles and Woolworths don’t own the land and just operate the service station on the site,” Mr Woodley said.

Mr Woodley said construction would basically be building a new service station, much like how the Woolworths Caltex on Gipps St was constructed after demolishing the old BP service station.

“It’s good for the area to have a modern, properly constructed service station,” he said.

“Some of these older sites and their tanks can become problematic for the environment.”

There is no access onto Swan St for the approved service station, and all entrances and exits will be made onto Carp St.

“They [the developers] were obviously mindful in their application, and we were in our consent, that traffic not be on Swan St as it is a residential area,” Mr Woodley said.

Late Thursday, Coles confirmed they were in discussion with the developer for the site.

“We can confirm that we are in discussions with the developer about a Coles Express being built at the Swan Street site,” a Coles spokesperson said.

While the current service station on the site is Caltex, the company does not own the property and is currently in negotiations to continue its lease.

“We are in discussion with the owners of the site to renew the lease,” Caltex spokesman Sam Collyer said on Thursday.

“As a tenant of the site, we are still interested in continuing our lease.”

Consent was approved on December 4, 2014 and Procon Development has until the end of 2019 to act upon the approval.