Europa Oil & Gas has promised to carry out a detailed study of the environmental impact of its plans to drill on the North Yorkshire Heritage Coast, despite a ministerial ruling that the assessment is not needed.

The company successfully appealed to the government against a decision by North Yorkshire that the proposal for gas exploration at Burniston, near Scarborough, needed an environmental impact assessment (EIA).

The council had ruled that the plans would have “significant impacts on the environment” and any application should be accompanied by an environmental statement, the outcome of an EIA.

But earlier this week, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government issued a direction that the proposal was not an EIA development and that an EIA was not required.

Despite this, Europa told North Yorkshire Council yesterday (7 November 2024):

“[the company] will be submitting a planning application to the Council next month which will be accompanied by an Environmental Statement. The Environmental Statement will address those matters identified in the Council’s Screening Opinion of 1st August 2024 which the Council considers are likely to generate significant environmental effects.”

A meeting in Burniston in the summer unanimously called on planners to require an EIA. Local people and campaigners had welcomed the council’s decision.

Europa wants to drill a 1.7km lateral well and inject fluid and proppant, such as sand, into the borehole to fracture surrounding rocks.

This process, known as a proppant squeeze, is regarded by regulators as small-scale hydraulic fracturing. But it is not covered by the moratorium on fracking in England because the volume of fluid is below the limit set by law.

The company had previously argued that its plans, at Burniston Mill, did not meet the criteria for an EIA. It said operations would take place over “a relatively short time”, estimated at 37 weeks.

Chris Garforth, a spokesperson for Frack Free Coastal Communities, a new group formed by residents of the coastal villages sitting above the gas that Europa Oil and Gas want to extract, said:

“From the discussions we’ve had locally over the weekend, our main reactions are that the people and institutions in Whitehall making these decisions have not yet realised the changing reality we all face – the legal reality after recent Supreme and High Court decisions as well as the intensifying evidence of catastrophic changes in our climate.

“While Europa’s proposed exploratory / appraisal development is ‘temporary’, planners should be considering the climate and other impacts of the potential extraction of 192 billion cubic feet of gas from the site over the next 20 years – which is what Europa is telling their investors they are buying into.

“We are also disappointed that the carefully considered screening decision by North Yorkshire Council, based on policies within their rigorously Minerals and Waste Plan, has been ignored by civil servants in allowing this appeal.

“Local MP Alison Hume wrote to the Secretary of State last month setting out in detail reasons why an EIA was essential to Europa’s planning application: she too has been ignored in the appeal process. Not a good day for democracy.” 

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