Plans to sell booze at a South London petrol station 24 hours a day have been thrown out after the Met Police raised fears it would allow students to get more drunk after nights out.

Kingston Council's director of public health also objected to the plans for Rose Cottage Service Station, in New Malden, over concerns it would add to crime and alcohol-related ambulance call-outs in the neighbourhood.

At the council's licensing committee on September 11, Legal advisor Stephanie Bruce-Smith, representing the Met Police, raised concerns about the petrol station being close to student accommodation and two recreation grounds.

She said the outside areas of the student accommodation could not be used after 11pm so noise and booze consumption was "likely to be dispersed into the local outdoor areas" of the neighbourhood.

Motor Fuel Group (MFG) had applied to extend the hours the petrol station could sell booze to 24 hours a day.

Ms Bruce-Smith said the police was concerned students and others returning from nights out would "drink more or use the alcohol licence to become more drunk as the night goes along and they will congregate by the service station and/or in the local open spaces to consume this alcohol, resulting in a likely increase in antisocial behaviour, crime and potentially even the creation of hotspots".

She added: "Within a 1km radius, it is the only alcohol premises with a licence for after 11pm and we consider that it is likely therefore that people will travel into this area and to this service station, which is in a predominantly residential area, to purchase alcohol during the night."

Louise Gallagher, representing the council's director of public health Iona Lidington, added: "According to SafeStats data over the last couple of years, there have been about 20 alcohol-related ambulance call-outs within 500 metres of the service station and there have also been over 700 incidents of crime in the area so we just feel that extending the licensing hours would only add to this."

But solicitor Robert Botkai, representing MFG, argued the police's concerns were "far-fetched". He said records dating back to 2001 showed there had been no incidents or complaints made about the store.

He said MFG owned more than 650 24-hour licensed stores in England and Wales so they were "extremely experienced at running petrol stations that are authorised to sell alcohol 24 hours a day", and that its petrol station 1.1 miles away in Kingston had a 24-hour licence with no recorded complaints.

Mr Botkai said students could already buy booze 24 hours a day from online delivery services and that the petrol station would not be a "very busy alcohol destination venue". He added the shop would sell booze responsibly, following conditions imposed on the licence, and not to anyone who was drunk.

He said: "It is already licensed to sell for an hour later than other stores in the area, so I would submit that if there were likely to be problems associated with alcohol at this store, then the fact that we have the midnight licence already would suggest that at least some of those concerns would have materialised to date – anything else is merely [conjecture]."

Ms Bruce-Smith later said there had been a reported crime incident at the venue on September 8. Mr Botkai asked for this information to be disregarded as he had not been told of the incident, and that it would be investigated.

The committee decided to refuse the application after the hearing. A report on the decision said members "believed there was no other place along that road to buy alcohol for off-sales purposes, that would involve the premises becoming a destination for such sales, the premises being a place where persons would congregate, and a place where students or others returning from other places will attend to purchase and prolong drinking in the area".

The report said there were "problems in the area generally and especially in terms of anti-social behaviour in the parks". It added the committee believed there would be "a cumulative impact with an increase in alcohol sales" between midnight and 6am.