TEIGNBRIDGE Council planners, already smarting over the Newton Abbot CLS Laundry debacle, have found themselves in another embarrassing position.
Now it has been forced to make retrospective applications for three containers in Road Park, Hennock, and nine in St James's Place, Christow, in the hope that the authority will pour oil on troubled waters.
An investigation has also been launched to look into the slip.
Cllr Tom Archer told Monday's development control committee that it was quite an embarrassing situation.
'There has been a fair bit of concern regarding two of the containers in Christow. Perhaps there should be screening and that could be made a condition,' he said.
Cllr Keith Smith said he could not believe that they were putting the containers in people's front gardens in beauty spots.
It brought a comment from Cllr Dick Petherick that the tanks were 'absolutely horrendous'.
He said: 'I think they have gone out of their way to make them as ugly and obtrusive as they can.
'They should have gone underground.'
Cllr Sylvia Russell said that if she lived in the Dartmoor National Park and wanted to put a container in her front garden she doubted whether she would get permission.
'This is awful,' she said.
The matter was adjourned for more than an hour to allow council solicitor Simon Barnes to speak to members of the property department.
Later, he said all the applications were in the front or side gardens and none of the tanks were in the back gardens.
'When they looked at the scheme it was their intention to hide them away in the back gardens but it has not been possible to put them there because of the difficulty of trying to persuade the oil to run uphill. The fact was overlooked that in the front garden they would need planning permission,' he said.
The committee offered no objections to the district authority's 12 retrospective applications and the matter will now be discussed by the national park.