Last week British fuel giant BP stripped its St Helens station of LPG citing ``ageing infrastructure'' as the reason behind the move.

Bicheno is the second closest LPG dispenser, 76 kilometres away.

Motorists and residents of St Helens now face a six week wait for LPG, while reconstruction of the town's United service station continues.

Yesterday Break O' Day Mayor Mick Tucker said BP's decision to remove LPG was ``sad''.

``It's not a good situation, but there's nothing we can do,'' he said.

``They haven't showed consideration to a rural community where they had 100 per cent of the gas sales.''

Cr Tucker said confusion remained over why the LPG site was scrapped.

He said the site was ``five to eight years old'' and residents did not understand why BP had labelled it as ``ageing infrastructure''.

A BP spokeswoman yesterday said low sales had contributed to the closure.

``BP’s decision is the result of concerns we have for ageing infrastructure which, due to low levels of LPG sales, is no longer commercially viable to upgrade,'' she said.

``We apologise for any inconvenience to LPG users in the local community.''

St Helens' United service station is expected to open in late February.