The first planning permission granted in England for full fracking operations is under challenge at the Planning Court.
Local campaigners and Friends of the Earth (FOTE) are hoping to persuade Mrs Justice Lang to quash the planning consent granted to Third Energy UK Gas for hydraulic fracturing – aka fracking – on land at Ryedale, North Yorkshire. The permission, granted in May, was the first in England for fracking on a production scale, as opposed to for exploratory operations.
David Wolfe QC, representing the campaign group Frack Free Ryedale and FOTE, opened his case, arguing that, in approving the development, North Yorkshire County Council unlawfully failed to carry out an assessment of the indirect, secondary or cumulative climate change impacts from the development when considering the environmental impacts of the proposal.
He said that the authority misdirected itself in law in concluding that it could not require Third Energy to provide a financial bond for any long-term “legacy” pollution effects.
The county council maintains that it made a reasonable and lawful decision that its environmental statement did not need to include an assessment of the climate change impacts of burning of gas produced by the development, while lawyers for Third Energy argue that the issue of potential pollution was fully and appropriately dealt with.
The case, which is being dealt with as a rolled-up hearing, is scheduled to last two days, with a judgment expected in writing at a later date.
