A new Mobil petrol station will be coming to Narrandera, and its owner, Mark Bassal, is very keen to make his mark on the town.
“It’s time to have some competition in the town for fuel prices,” Mr Bassal said. “We don’t sell E10, we only sell unleaded fuel, we don’t find E10 popular in regional areas.”
The new petrol station will not only provide fuel for the town and travellers, but will contain a Jill & Jack’s Daily cafe. The business will open this Saturday, September 30 from 8am. There will be coffee served, along with face-painting, gift bags and a two for one deal on pies and sausage rolls. Spirit FM will also broadcast from outside the business.
It’s an opportunity to create more jobs for the town.
“We’ll probably create three to four new positions. That’s without the cafe,” Mr Bassal said. “We’re going to hire locals, although trade is a bit tricky. You’ve got to get the right people. We’ll put in our people to start, and when we get going we can start interviewing locals. We’ve got nowhere to interview people at the moment!”
Mr Bassal said he wanted the business to become involved in the town.
“We’ll support the local sporting teams; we’ve got a budget for that.”
Any creation of local jobs will be welcome in the town, although Mr Bassal said he’d encountered some difficulties trying to build the business.
“Your council doesn’t do any favours. The DA took about eight months to get approval. We were trying to put new tanks in there and they wanted all this information. I’ve dealt with Sydney councils and I’ve never seen that sort of thing before.
“We got there in the end, it was just long, you know? But we’ve all got to work together in the future,” Mr Bassal said.
The Narrandera Shire Council is not there to do ‘favours’. I would expect Council to abide by development laws and legislation. As a ratepayer I do not wish money and time being wasted to chase up developers who may have not adhered to standards. I also do not want Council making shortcuts in regards to development so as not to be in the same mess as Griffith City Council is in ‘rushing’ through paperwork. Perhaps a comment from our new CEO at Narrandera has been sought by Narrandera Argus.
Please don’t prejudge our town or its people by the processes you have endured. As a previous business owner in town, I fully understand the CRAP that council puts businesses through, its no wonder new ones are not coming into town. TO Mark congratulations for sticking with it , may you have successful Business, I for one will supporting.
Remember the multiple conditions put on the 30+ million dollar conola crushing plant and bottle making facility. All we now have to show for it is a nice security fence around a crop.