Members of the public and a councillor questioned Surrey County Council this morning over its handling of unlawful oil extraction at Horse Hill near Horley.

The site had its planning permission quashed by the Supreme Court in June 2024. But data published by DrillOrDrop earlier this month, and mentioned during the meeting, revealed that extraction had continued.

The company announced this week that it had suspended production on Friday 25 October 2024. This was more than 120 days after the Supreme Court judgement.

Council officials told Surrey’s planning committee today that the site would be visited next week and that discussions “were ongoing” with the site operator, Horse Hill Developments Limited, a subsidiary of UK Oil & Gas plc (UKOG).

Sian Saadeh, the council’s planning development manager, said an investigation “remains live in the sense of working towards full suspension and demobilisation of the site”. This was continuing, despite UKOG’s announcement that production had halted, she said:

“It was, and still is, the council’s position that the extraction of oil at the site is unlawful. So, it has not been permitted by the council.”

But she did not answer a question by Surrey County Councillor Jonathan Essex on whether the authority would issue an immediate stop notice to ensure operations ceased and site restoration began.

Ms Saadeh said there were a variety of next steps:

“No decisions have yet been made as to what those next steps may be so I can’t speak to them today”.

In response to a question from Deborah Elliot, a member of the public (pictured above), Ms Saadeh said she was unable to provide evidence to the meeting of talks between the council and the operator or answer why extraction had been allowed to continue.

Surrey County Council had said that UKOG had been “put on notice”.

But Ms Saadeh was also unable to answer a question by Jackie Macey (above) about when this had happened.

“I don’t have that at my fingertips right now”, Ms Saadeh said.

She said written answers would be sent to the questioners and members of the committee. She confirmed that the quashed permission was now back with the county council to redetermine.

Answering Jacqueline Phillips, Ms Saadeh said that an application for oil extraction at Horse Hill met the criteria for an environmental impact assessment and should include an environmental statement that considered the emissions from both producing and burning Horse Hill oil.

The planning committee’s chair, Cllr Edward Hawkins, declined to answer Neville Kemp’s question about whether the council had a bias in favour of the oil and gas industry.

Cllr Edward Hawkins said this was for the cabinet and other members of the council:

I’m not dodging the issue – it is just beyond our remit.”  

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