CHINDERAH residents are alarmed at the prospect that the BP highway service centre could double in size saying the expansion will create intolerable noise and further threaten koala habitat.

Tweed Shire councillors voted last night to seek further talks with the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority about the operation of the existing centre and possible plans for another opposite the current station, serving the northbound lanes of the Pacific Highway.

Mayor Kevin Skinner has described the noise from trucks slowing down and entering the present station as horrendous and predicts further protests against the proposed expansion.

“We are definitely against any extension,” said president of the Chinderah District Residents Association Felicia Cecil.

“That will just create further noise.

“The noise is just unbelievable. They (the trucks) come off the Barney Point Bridge at 110kmh .... then they start riding their compression brakes at the overpass opposite the Cudgen Leagues Club.

“They are right in the middle of a residential area.”

Ms Cecil said the centre should have been put in the originally proposed location at the former Melaleuca Station tourist stopover, now a crematorium and funeral home, amid cane land further south.

“We’ve got decibel levels up in the 60s.” She added. “Once they exceed 57 decibels that RTA is supposed to do something but has done nothing.”

Owner of the nearby Royal Pacific Tourist Retreat and Caravan Park Bob Caine agreed the centre should have been put at Melaleuca Station and warned the expansion would also wipe out further koala habitat.

Under the plans to double the size of the service centre 36 new heavy vehicle parking bays would be built and the existing truck bays replaced with extra car parking bays.