MOTORISTS may soon be able to take a break at a new £2 million service station on the A228 at East Peckham, near Maidstone.

Plans have been submitted to Tonbridge and Malling council for a filling station, car wash and restaurant on the roundabout junction of Banbridges Road and Boyle Way, near the Hop Farm Country Park.

The site is on the floodplains of the River Medway and, if the plans are approved, land would have to be raised so fuel pipes are above flood-level to avoid pollution. It has yet to be confirmed which fuel and restaurant companies will use the site but developers Margram Holdings is hoping to attract one of the big three fuel companies, Shell, BP or Esso.

The application is an update of plans originally approved by the council in 1996, which featured separate buildings for the restaurant and filling station and a slip-road entrance to the site from the A228.

Martin Page, spokesman for Maidstone-based David Hicken Associates which is the planning consultant for the project, said: "There are two major differences now, the access to and from the site is now from Banbridges Road and the two buildings have been amalgamated into one.

"If it is approved work will start straight away and it will take six months, because of the time needed to raise the site to avoid flooding."

A date has not yet been set for the plans to be considered by the borough council's planning committee.