St Mary's Catholic Church and Primary School on Onewa Rd knows the problem all too well. Parents battle the traffic in the mornings and afternoons, dropping or walking children to school or the nearby childcare centre. Northcote College is also on this road, adding to pedestrian traffic.

Gladstone Rd residents and churchgoers are horrified at a proposal to turn an existing warehouse into a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week petrol station at 119 Onewa Rd, on the corner of Gladstone, right next door to the church.

St Mary's priest Craig Dunford says the community learned of the application only because the developer had to ask the church's permission to build close to its boundary.

"We've said quite clearly that 'No, we are not going to give our permission'," he says.

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