The Surrey wellsite that unlawfully extracted oil after the Supreme Court quashed its planning permission has not been issued with a formal stop notice, the county council confirmed today.

Oil extraction at the Horse Hill site near Horley continued for four months after the court judgement in June this year.

Production stopped on 25 October 2024 when the operator, a subsidiary of UK Oil & Gas plc (UKOG), voluntarily suspended work.

Responding to public questions, Surrey County Council planning officers said today:

“No formal enforcement or stop notice has been issued to date at the site.

“The matter remains subject to on-going review alongside the work necessary to review the voluntary cessation by the operator.”

Responding to public questions, the council’s planning development manager, Sian Saadeh, told a meeting of the planning committee this morning:

“The consideration of formal action at Horse Hill remains a live matter with the council’s enforcement and monitoring team.”

She added:

“We continue to monitor the situation closely at Horse Hill and that does not preclude further action being taken if it is deemed to be necessary.”

Asked by Sarah Freeman how the council would ensure that UKOG did not recommence unlawful activity at Horse Hill, Ms Saadeh said:

“If we receive evidence that that had happened that would clearly be a change in the circumstances and that may be the point at which we have to further consider formal enforcement action.

“The planning enforcement system cannot pre-emptively prevent something. It is a reactive system. So, if we receive evidence that there has been the recommencement of extraction we would need to consider a robust course of action at that point in time.”

Jackie Macey accused the council of failing to act on the unlawful oil production at Horse Hill.

Ms Saadeh denied that the council had ignored extraction at the site:

“The operator was advised and told that the continued extraction was unlawful.” She said the production was not ignored – “an enforcement investigation was beginning”.

But when asked by Neville Kemp what remained to be investigated, Ms Saadeh said:

“we are reviewing information that has been obtained at this particular moment in time and that will inform what does happen next. Monitoring at the site is active – what the operator is doing at the site in terms of cessation and remediation of the site.”

She added:

“Part of our review of the information we have obtained is to inform future decisions as to what the conclusion of the case will be, but it remains live until the matter is resolved. There isn’t a defined point at this moment in time. Until we are satisfied that all necessary steps have been taken the investigation and monitoring will remain life. 

The Horse Hill planning permission will now need to be redetermined if the site is to continue work.

Surrey County Council has said it is waiting for additional information from the operator on the greenhouse emissions from burning the Horse Hill oil, the issue at the heart of the Supreme Court judgement.

But today’s meeting revealed that there was no deadline for the company to provide this data.

Ms Saadeh said:

“A definitive timescale hasn’t been set. That is a matter for ongoing conversation so I can’t, at this point, give a confirmed date by which we expect to have received additional information.”

Campaigners have called for the site to be restored to its former state now that there is no planning permission. But the council confirmed today that there was no deadline for this either.

It said:

“no formal date has been agreed by the council by which the restoration of the site must have been completed. On-going monitoring of the situation, both in discussion with the operator and by site visit, is taking place.”

Ms Saadeh added:

“The current position is that the development at site is unlawful and the operator should therefore be remedying the situation as soon as possible.”

Members of the public at today’s meeting contrasted the situation at Horse Hill with a nearby unlawful waste site, where the council had issued a stop notice “fairly promptly”.

Ms Saadeh said the Horse Hill operator had been working with the council towards a voluntary resolution.

Earlier this week, the campaign group, Weald Action Group, asked the council to prevent the sale of oil produced at Horse Hill after the Supreme Court judgement.

Today, the council was asked to take formal steps to ensure that UKOG did not profit from its “unlawful activity in Surrey”.

The planning committee chairman, Cllr Edward Hawkins, suggested this was beyond the remit of the meeting.

Ms Saadeh said:

“The purpose of the planning enforcement system is not to be punitive but to seek remedy, in terms of remedying the planning harm. And that must always be the thrust of what we are looking at.”

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