Road’s end for station

By Ed Merrison
AFTER months of uncertainty, the axe will finally fall on Kallista’s Ampol service station at the end of the month.
The last day of trading has been set for Wednesday, 30 November in spite of residents’ ongoing concerns that the closure will turn Kallista into a ghost town.
The site was initially marked for closure on 30 June when operator Shan Sutharsan received notice from parent company Caltex that an underground petrol tank was leaking.
Caltex determined that the cost of repairing the site outweighed the cost of continuing its operation.
However, the site received a stay of execution until 31 July after Mr Sutharsan presented a petition with more than 1000 signatures to Caltex.
The Kallista service station received another letoff when Caltex announced it would remain open indefinitely despite the company’s spokeswoman Jenny Palmer branding it an ‘underperforming site with an environmental risk’.
Since then Ampol Kallista has lived a precarious existence with the knowledge that Caltex could give a month’s notice of closure at any time.Mr Sutharsan, who estimated that close to 2000 objections to the closure had been registered, said he was ‘very disappointed’ that the site was closing after a sixmonth fight.
“We’ve done our best myself and the community to keep it up and running but it’s up to Caltex and they’ve made their decision.
“I don’t understand the decision but what do you do? I can’t make the decision for them,” Mr Sutharsan said.
Ms Palmer confirmed the service station would be cleaned up and sold despite issues raised by local residents.
Caltex also responded to complaints that residents had no other service station close by, citing the Caltex site on Mount Dandenong Road at Tremont, approximately 6km from Kallista.
However, some Kallista residents believe the lack of service station will have more farreaching consequences.
Gianna Davern, a resident for almost 20 years who works at the Kallista Tea Rooms, said the closure would certainly be detrimental to the townsfolk.
“It’s on the Monbulk Road, a major through road that people use on the way to tourist destinations.
“They often stop for petrol and have a look around and that brings business to the town,” Ms Davern said.
Peter Allen, who runs Kallista’s post office, was similarly bleak in his assessment of the loss of Ampol Kallista.
“If we don’t have another service station to take its place, then it’s just another nail in the coffin of another little village in the Dandenongs.
“As a community we don’t like to see any business shut down.
“One closure makes all businesses less viable to a certain extent,” Mr Allen said.