There is still no date for final clearance of the oil site at the centre of a Supreme Court landmark judgement issued nine months ago.

In June 2024, the court quashed the planning permission at Horse Hill in Surrey after ruling that it had been granted unlawfully.

But Surrey County Council, which issued the consent, confirmed today the date for final site clearance was “the subject of ongoing discussions” with the operator’s parent company, UK Oil & Gas (UKOG).

The information came in response to a question by Sarah Freeman, at the council’s monthly planning committee meeting.

Ms Freeman, who has put questions about Horse Hill to previous meetings, asked why the date had not been arranged.

The council’s planning development manager, Sian Saadeh said:

“We are working with them [UKOG] to understand progress towards clearance of the site and understand and agree what a date may be.”

Ms Freeman also asked what monitoring visits had been carried out by the council to Horse Hill.

The council said the most recent visit had been on 20 March 2025 to inspect decommissioning work that took place on 13 March 2025.

A pump had been removed and officials observed “continuing efforts to remove operational development associated with production activity”, the council said.

It added that officials would continue to inspect the Horse Hill site to ensure progress continued “at a satisfactory pace”.

Jackie Macey, another regularly questioner on Horse Hill, asked what steps the council would take to ensure that UKOG complied with its requirement to clear and restore the site.

The council said “ongoing monitoring and engagement with the operator” would continue. It added:  

“Formal action will only be taken where it is considered expedient to do so and the assessment of expediency will remain ongoing alongside the continued monitoring and engagement.”

Ms Macey also asked whether the committee would take into account a recent University College London study on possible links between oil production and earthquakes when it considered the new Horse Hill planning application.

She said the research concluded that production at Horse Hill may have triggered more than 100 small earthquakes in and around Newdigate in 2018-19. This contradicted the findings of previous studies.

Ms Saadeh replied:

“What the committee will consider when Horse Hill comes before them, at some future yet undetermined date, they will take account of at that point.

DrillOrDrop has closed the comments section on this and future articles. We are doing this because of the risk of liability for copyright infringement in comments. We still want to hear about your reaction to DrillOrDrop articles. You can contact us by clicking here.