IT’S CLEAN, it’s green and it may be the fuel of the future, but they won’t have it in Romford. Britain’s first hydrogen refuelling station has been rejected by a planning committee in the London Borough of Havering on grounds of safety.

Havering council threw out BP’s application to install a hydrogen pump at a petrol station a couple of miles outside Romford. The site, which also boasts a wind turbine, was earmarked to supply three buses powered by fuel cells, part of a European pilot scheme.

Fuel cells create electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen in a chemical process without polluting emissions. Shell recently launched its first hydrogen production station in Iceland, which will fuel a fleet of buses in Reykjavik.

Matthew Gallagher, a Havering planning officer, said his department had approved BP’s project but the elected committee had reservations about the safety of the explosive gas. “We did have some objections from local residents,” he said.

Don Peacock, a local Green Party member, called the council small-minded. “They cannot see the historic significance of this,” he said. “Would they have banned petrol stations when they were invented?” A BP spokesman said it was considering an appeal. “We have thousands of petrol stations selling LPG gas. It isn’t that different.”