Kent County Council has confirmed Coastal Oil and Gas has withdrawn three planning applications for exploratory boreholes at Shepherdswell, Eythorne and Guston near Dover.

In a letter to East Kent Against Fracking, the council said the company, which says it wants to explore for coal bed  methane, would be re-submitting the applications “in due course”.

Last month, the council cancelled a public meeting because more information was needed from the company on how it proposed to prevent pollution of groundwater. The council said the new information could “lead to significant changes to the proposals.” The application was opposed by many local residents and all four parish councils in the areas affected. In late September, the local Conservative MP, Charlie Elphicke, was described in the Daily Express  as his party’s “leading backbench enthusiast for fracking” and he wrote on the Conservative Home website that shale gas was good for consumers, the environment and energy security. But reports of a public meeting in early October suggested he had changed his mind and was opposed to the applications in east Kent

• In September Cuadrilla Resources withdrew its application to West Sussex County Council for a six-month extension to its planning permission for exploratory drilling at Balcombe. It has since submitted a new application to test flow rates at the well. This has not yet been published because the council needs more information to validate the application. It is now expected to be published later this month.