Landowner GB Oils, which operates Emo Oil, the larger of two oil depots on Moss Lane, has applied for permission to develop 36 new homes on the 2.2 acre site.
The proposed development is next to the site of the recently demolished Harrisons hardware store which is being developed for 14 homes and two shops. That development is due to be complete by late 2009.
If approved, GB Oils' plans would see the demolition of both the oil depot and an office block currently leased to Shared Approach, one of Garstang's largest employers, whose 85 full and part-time staff are involved in supporting people with learning difficulties.
The housing proposal, rumoured for several months, comes after oil depot bosses announced in 2007 that the base would close and its four staff move to another depot in Blackburn.
The plans show 24 family homes (one three-bed bungalow, 15 three-bed two storey houses and eight four-bed and three/four bed three storey town houses). There would also be 12 affordable homes (comprising six two-bed houses, three three-bed houses, two two-bed flats and one one-bed flat). The flats would be in a two and a half storey block.
One third of the properties would be affordable. Wyre Housing Association have said they would be interested in developing the affordable homes part of the scheme.
GB Oils, who have held preliminary discussions with Wyre planners, circulated letters to residents in neighbouring Moss Lane, Windsor Gardens and Gregory Meadow about the proposals.
There would be only one access in and out of the new estate, via a widened entry road on the site of the oil depot access road off Moss Lane.
There would be an emergency access link to Gregory Meadow, and possibly a footpath to Booths.
The site has been an oil depot since 1960. An environmental assessment with the plans says in March investigations were conducted which showed some "visible and olfactory" contamination in exploratory boreholes. Contamination is said to be "almost exclusively restricted to shallow soils."
A list of recommended action to deal with contamination concerns is in the assessment, including advice that houses should be built with impermeable vapour membranes, garden and landscaped areas should include meshed barriers, a clay subsoil barrier, and fresh topsoil.
No-one was available for comment at GB Oils' Warrington head office.
Coun David Sharples, managing director of Shared Approach, which has leased the GB Oils office block on Moss Lane for several years, said his business still had three years of its current lease left to run.
Coun Sharples, former vice chairman of Wyre planning committee, said he had not yet considered where the company might move to, but added he was concerned about the upheaval caused by any future move.
* PLANS for another new property in Garstang have also been submitted. Local planning agents Graham Anthony Associates have plans for a home on the site of buildings behind Garstang Methodist Church, Park Hill Road. The applicant is LBT Motors, of High Street, Garstang.