Government declines to decide Burniston fracking application

Commenting on news that the government has decided not to intervene in controversial plans for gas drilling and low-volume fracking at Burniston, near Scarborough and will instead leave the final decision to North Yorkshire County Council, Tony Bosworth, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:

“The government still has a key role to play in the fate of this planning application.

“Labour has promised to ban fracking - and this highly controversial and deeply unpopular proposal involves a low-level form of fracking called proppant squeeze.

“Ministers must ensure that proppant squeeze is included in its forthcoming ban, update national policy accordingly, and ensure communities like those in Burniston are not forced to accept damaging developments in their local area.

“Fracking blights our countryside, won’t cut UK energy bills and is deeply unpopular with local communities. This application should be rejected.”

Ends

Notes
1.   Last year, Friends of the Earth – which is objecting to the application – wrote to North Yorkshire Council informing it that it had obtained expert legal opinion from leading environmental barrister, Estelle Dehon KC, that proppant squeeze meets the definition of “hydraulic fracturing” under relevant planning policy, and must be treated as such.
2.  The application is unanimously opposed by Reform-led Scarborough Town Council, local Labour MP Alison Hume (who has called for a comprehensive ban on small-scale fracking operations) and local group Frack Free Coastal Communities.
3.  There is currently a moratorium on fracking, introduced after a 2.9ML earthquake was triggered in Lancashire in 2019, but this applies only to so-called “high volume” or "associated”  hydraulic fracturing. It does not cover proppant squeeze, a lower-volume technique that involves injecting a fluid and proppant (a granular substance like sand) into the rock formation at high pressure, to create fractures.