Cooroy Service Station EIA 21_06_16

7.0 IMPACT ASSESSMENT
This impact assessment chapter assesses the proposed development’s potential impacts and
measures them against the existing and future network of centres and competitive facilities.

Impact on Convenience Centres/Centres Network
Convenience retailing in service stations is typically not directly analogous to convenience
supermarket retailing. As discussed in the demand chapter, whilst there would be a small overlap
between retail products in service stations as opposed to convenience supermarkets, there
would also be substantial differences. While service stations would have a higher focus on snacks,
drinks and auto-related products tailored to the needs of motorists, convenience supermarkets
would have more dry and fresh groceries targeted at providing for top-up needs of households.
As a result, any convenience retail associated with a service station on the subject site would
have a lower level of impact on the surrounding network of centres.

The existing centre within the Trade Area is the Cooroy Business Centre. The impact on other
centres within the Noosa Shire such as Tewantin, Noosaville and Noosa Heads are not considered
significant, nor would the proposed development have a significant impact on the Eumundi
centre within the Sunshine Coast Regional Council area.

The nature of service stations is such that the clientele is comprised of a core catchment as well
as a very broad and diffuse rogue catchment, suggesting that the impact of the service station,
including its convenience retailing component, would also be diffused over a wide area, with very
low impacts on individual competitive centres.

The proposed service station would provide only a limited range of goods and is estimated to
have a negligible quantitative impact on the performance of centres in the surrounding network.
In particular, the inclusion of the fast-food outlet at the subject site would reduce the pressure
for this type of development within the Cooroy centre, which does not fit with the village and
visitor nature of the locality, or in dispersed Highway locations that would not offer the level of
convenience for Cooroy residents.

The proposed service station would not have a significant impact on the role, performance or
level in the hierarchy of existing and approved centres in the hierarchy. More particularly, the
proposed convenience store would be ancillary to the fuel retailing facility and would therefore
complement existing centres and provide for unmet needs and a clear gap in the service provision
for residents and motorists.

Impact on Other Service Stations

The distances to any competitive service station with convenient access to the Highway suggest
that the impact upon any individual service station is likely to be low and not a cause for concern.
The nature of the operations of service stations, by default serving a clientele that is undertaking

                                                                                          31 | Page