The company hopes to build five shops and a light industrial warehouse on a site in Anzac Parade, Bundanoon, near two heritage-listed properties.

Council refused the application in its present form at its last meeting but will consider a rescission motion at tonight’s meeting.

“Bundanoon residents are not opposed to Norlex building shops on the site but oppose the inclusion of light industry which is not permissible under council’s draft 2009 LEP,” BCA president Ralph Clark said.

“It is proposed to house this industry, the nature of which is a mystery, in a huge, very high metal shed which is totally out of character and scale in a street with a heritage listing.

“Across the road is the historic original pill factory of William Augustus Nicholas, a pioneer of Bundanoon in the 1800s, and at the rear is the heritage-listed railway station.

“We are disappointed that some councillors want to overturn a decision which was made unanimously less than two weeks ago.”

Environment and planning director Scott Lee said the site was not heritage listed but is within the proposed Bundanoon Heritage Conservation Area that is part of the draft LEP.

There is a special clause in the current LEP that allows industrial use, but it would require the applicant to consider the two nearby properties that are heritage listed.

At its last meeting the council called for amended plans from Norlex that would be more in keeping with the heritage conservation area.

“As far as the BCA is concerned this has nothing to do with Norlex’s other applications to ship bore water to Sydney and is solely about the unsuitability of this industrial development in a heritage-listed village dependent on tourism,” Mr Clark said.

“Council should uphold the new LEP which prohibits light industrial use as it has done with several other developments in accordance with Section 79C of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.”