Council approved the plans for a service station at 5350 Great Western Highway last week, but the decision wasn't unanimous.

The director of Environmental, Planning and Building Services anticipated some councillors might be against the proposal, providing wording for an alternate motion to refuse consent.

However, it was only councillor Monica Morse who objected to the development.

"The development is on the major entrance to our city. This land is part of heritage-declared land. It is called Violet Hill and this is a service station as you come into Bathurst on the right," she said. "Now over the years many people have said they want to have agricultural views, agricultural land, as they come into Bathurst."

She cited reasons to refuse consent in the alternate recommendation, those reasons including that the development was "not consistent with the zone objectives" and that it "will have an adverse impact on the significance of a heritage item".

"All those things are good reasons for not having another service station on the entrance to Bathurst. It's also another service station on the exit from Bathurst, and what is happening is we are turning into a strip development city," Cr Morse said.

"... We recently approved a service station also on the left as you're leaving Bathurst, so now we're going to have so many service stations in, what I would see, as a strip development for Bathurst, which is, a, unsightly, and, b, not part of what we believe to be our heritage views, our heritage land."

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While some councillors agreed there are a lot of service stations in Bathurst, they felt council had to accept that a developer sees potential for another one to thrive.

"Do we want more petrol stations? Do we want more car yards? I've had other people say do we need that number of hairdressers or whatever in town, but if people see an opportunity, and they're able to do it, and they want to spend money in our region to create jobs for the future of this area - we've all spoke about it - we want to encourage that," deputy mayor Ian North said.

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Cr Jess Jennings also noted that the landscaping around the development would "soften its impact", which he said he didn't think would be as great as some people feared.

In addition to being a fuel retailer, the development will also inlcude a convenience store, a takeaway food and drink premises, and charging stations for electric vehicles.

The Statement of Environmental Effects for the development states that approximately 65 jobs will be created.

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