Waverley Borough Council said today it was taking legal advice and considering an appeal following the dismissal of its court challenge over gas drilling near Dunsfold.
The council had argued at the High Court in June that the housing minister, Stuart Andrew, acted unlawfully in granting planning permission to UK Oil & Gas for an exploration site at Loxley.
Yesterday, the judge, Mrs Justice Steyn refused to allow legal challenges by the council and the community group, Protect Dunsfold.
The council’s announcement is the latest development in a four-year fight against the proposals by local people and their representatives. Surrey County Council twice refused consent for the scheme (details here and here).
Before the hearing in June, Waverley’s council leader, Cllr Paul Follows, said he would take the fight to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Today, Cllr Follows said:
“This decision is, quite simply, wrong on every level. If drilling goes ahead at this site there would be damaging impacts on the landscape, wildlife, local businesses and residents.
“On top of this, onshore extraction of fossil fuels is totally incompatible with the climate emergency declared by Waverley Borough Council, Surrey County Council, and our national government. In this country we need to rapidly increase our investment in renewables, where we are genuinely world leaders, focussing our energy generation on sustainable methods such as offshore wind, and stop ripping up the Surrey Hills looking for oil and gas.
“The judgement today is bad for local communities, bad for the local environment and sets a precedent that is very bad for the planet and for future generations.”
Waverley’s portfolio holder for environment and sustainability, Cllr Steve Williams, said today:
“At every stage in the long and tortured history of this planning application, local people have demonstrated their overwhelming opposition to any exploration for hydrocarbons at Dunsfold.
“More importantly, due to global heating vast areas of the earth are literally on fire, and we desperately need to see the government recognise that in its policies. The time for kicking the can down the road has long passed. We are either serious about ending the economic model based on digging carbon out of the ground and pumping it into our atmosphere, or we’re not.
“The government’s decision to allow drilling for fossil fuels in the Surrey countryside represents an abject failure to take seriously its commitment to tackling the climate emergency we now face.”
Yesterday, Protect Dunsfold said it was considering an appeal.
The judge’s ruling was welcomed by UK Oil & Gas plc, which plans to turn gas extracted at Loxley into hydrogen. The company said the scheme was “fully in keeping with the government’s hydrogen and energy security strategies.
DRILL OR DROP? 
Vast areas of earth on fire due to global warming (a [edited by moderator] person states)! It’s not. Glibal forest fires have been occurring naturally since the dawn of time. Many are necessary to create new growth, even the USA Indians knew that. Plus. Many global temp sensors give false data. Many are placed in concrete, tarmac, or adjacent to HVAC exhausts, all managed by incompetent people. Politicians who promote these lies are stupid. In a recent USA gathering a number of them were asked what % of earths atmosc is CO2. They guessed 5 & 7 %, its 0.04% of which we create 3%, which to my reckoning 0.0012%. The local inhabitants, and politicians should stick to local roads, and building plans, instead of political and emotionally driven claptrap.
That settles it then!
Yet, within Net Zero there is no provision for no gas and no oil. One would wonder if any of those protesting about Government policy have actually read agreed Government policy.
No one is claiming no gas or oil will be needed for several years but there is ample provision from existing developments for that. We don’t need any new production.
“We” already have new production being imported from USA, Pauline, as LNG! On top of which, Centrica have just signed a 15 year contract for more US LNG, that starts in 2027-1m tonnes per year. That will not be from existing developments, or very little of it.
Norway has just approved $18B investment in new oil and gas. So, will UK imports from Norway only be from existing wells?
I have no problem with people stating their views, but to do so totally adrift from reality is rather self defeating.
There may be some gas imported from USA at the moment but if we also introduce more new sites the US won’t cut their output which obviously results in more fossil fuels at a time the world has been told we can’t have ANY new production if we are to have an even 50% chance of keeping to 1.5C. The world is on fire, people are losing their homes, holiday makers are being evacuated, we have droughts and floods and consequential failed crops resulting in not only higher food prices for us but famine and thousands being displaced because their land is no longer habitable. This is real. It’s happening now and can only get worse yet still people hide their heads in the sand and think it won’t affect them. It will.
Well said, Pauline. Unfortunately, however, your interlocutor’s arithmetic does not accept that 1 plus 1=2. He imagines that if we, God’ forbid, produce locally, then US production will slow down accordingly resulting in no greater levels of pollution. This is the [edited by moderator] argument we have to contend with.
It is 1720 if you avoid doing your own research. However, if you bother to try and overcome your previous statement to Paul where you stated you knew little about the oil and gas industry, you may not have to accept what others inform you about, but have your own pool of knowledge.
So, as you wish to engage in arithmetic, please take a look at US oil rig count (they also give data for gas) and then explain how all these added wells have not added up to thousands and thousands now existing, or indeed millions as millions have been drilled across the world!? The answer is quite simple, but may not be convenient to you and Pauline, so I expect some weird and wonderful deflection attempt. However, to help you some more, babies are born and people die. The FACT babies are born doesn’t determine that populations grow! It is not just humans who have a life cycle.
“Strange” such a concept can be so easily ignored on a platform where re-instatement of land with spent wells is frequently discussed. LOL. No wonder UK struggles with exporting stuff. It must be the cost of all those warehouses stuffed with production that continues even when the customer goes elsewhere!
Poor Ruth, supplying the data for weekly output from Wytch Farm over the decades, only for it to be deemed to be inconvenient and ignored. How many UK on shore oil sites likely to be required to add up to more than 100k BOE/day, 1720? Suggest you might find it quite a few to add up to one! Where is the carbon going to be stuffed? North Sea? Why?
Are there no antis who can make an argument without removing themselves from reality? Is that part of the job description? Interesting to see though that a few antis are trying their best even with fantasy to maintain demand so a few more wells are drilled going forward. I prefer the demand for manufacturing fertilizer and artificial rubber for medical devices, but I suppose niche markets also need to be supplied.
The higher food prices may just have something to do with cereals being diverted to plonk into petrol, Pauline, in addition to grain warehouses in Ukraine being bombed. First bit easily adjusted, and some countries now looking to ban such stupid “green” policies. (I notice even the Greens have now distanced themselves from having anything to do with the policy in the first place.) Even when this started with maize in the USA many years ago, higher world food prices resulted, as US farmers grew more maize and less soya, forcing up the world soya price and consequentially forcing up the price of meat that required soya. One might have thought there should have been some scientists or politicians who were aware? Animal nutritionists around the world certainly were, as they watched on their screens to see the US plantings each season, and swore when they saw the maize up and the soya down, then scuttled along to their buyers to see how covered forward they were, or were not. US farmers were just doing what they were incentivized to do.
USA has just cut it’s oil/gas output. Does so all the time to adjust for demand. Will do so again-see US rig counts to get the data. You can look at most of the individual US producers who report to their share holders what they are planning to do with output. Many have recently reported they will cut back a bit over the next few months as demand eases. OPEC have done so for decades, and kindly report their agreements to do so. Sometimes, they actually do what they agree. Strange with all that data the antis still try and construct a fictitious comfort blanket that one new oil/gas well in UK adds to output!
You talk about costs of food. Well, look at 2014 and see the crash in fuel prices that came from oil output exceeding demand as USA moved from being the world’s biggest importer of oil/gas towards becoming the largest exporter. Think you might find fuel costs also have a lot to do with cost of food, and cost of just about everything else.
I am sorry Pauline your rhetoric is not the reality. The reality is something that is recorded and reported. Might not appear on DoD but horizons are not usually that restricted.
Appeal denied and costs awarded to UKOG-see RNS from UKOG today.
I wonder what cuts will have to be made to pay the costs? They could crowd fund! They do-it is called Local Taxation. Not sure Russian Roulette with that money is what all of that crowd expect.