Proposals to explore for gas near the edge of the North York Moors would not cause “significant harm” to the national park, the park’s authority agreed this morning.

All but one of park’s planning committee voted to recommend approval of the Europa Oil & Gas scheme at Burniston. One member abstained.

But the committee said its recommendation to the decision-maker, North Yorkshire Council, was conditional on stronger controls on the site’s operation.

Europa is seeking three years of planning permission to:

• Construct an exploration site 800m outside the national park
• Drill a well to a depth of about 2km and length of 1.8km
• Carry out a proppant squeeze, a form of hydraulic fracturing, to increase the flow of gas.

This morning’s committee said North Yorkshire Council should set conditions, if permission were granted, on:

• Limiting the length of time rigs and cranes could be on the site
• Not routing heavy goods vehicles through the national park

The meeting also agreed to take up a point raised by Frack Free Coastal Communities (FFCC), which is campaigning against the proposal. The committee said North Yorkshire Council should look at contradictions in Europa’s application. Some documents suggested that equipment would be retained on the site after gas appraisal. Other documents said the site would be restored.

Key issues

The discussion on the Burniston application, which lasted more than an hour-and-a half, focussed on the impact of the site on views to and from the national park.

FFCC told the meeting that planners were wrong to say that only the top of the rig would be visible from the national park. They identified a place where the site itself could be seen.

National park planners said:

“There would be some visibility of the development from certain locations within the national park”.

But they added:

“This would mainly be limited to talker elements, particularly the upper part of the drill rig and the workover rig/crane.”

The site and the national park would both be visible from the Cleveland Way and other areas outside the park, the meeting heard.

Members accepted the planners’ conclusions that there would be some harm but this was limited by topography and the short time of drilling operations:

“The extent of harm caused to the national park on views, setting and the related special quality and purposes of the national park is considered to be limited and not sufficient to represent significant conflict with relevant local and national policy”.

Europa’s planning application says the Burniston site would be lit at night. The national park planners said they had reservations about Europa’s lighting assessment and suggested that standards of mitigation should meet a higher standard than that currently proposed.

But they concluded:

“the potential for significant harm to the national park ‘dark skies’ special quality and its status as an International Dark Skies Reserve was expected to be low”.

They also said the application had provided limited geological information on the risk of induced seismicity (earthquakes or tremors) caused by the proppant squeeze. To comply with the area’s minerals plan, the national park said further information was required to provide reassurance that the issue could be managed adequately.

The planners said greenhouse gas emissions from a possible future production phase were “outside the scope of this application and not a relevant planning consideration at this stage”. This had been confirmed by recent case law, they said.

The meeting also discussed other issues which FFCC said had not been addressed adequately by the national park planners. See our updated report. These issues included:

Site choice: FFCC said Europa had told residents in September 2024 that the Burniston site had been “specifically chosen on the advice of the National Park Authority”. National park planning officers said they had “not provided the applicant with any advice or suggestions on any specific site locations outside the national park boundary for this development and nor would it be appropriate for them to do so”.

Conflict with polyhalite extraction: National park planners said there was “no overlap” between the Burniston plans and the polyhalite safeguarding area but this could be a consideration if Europa sought to produce gas in the future.

Impact on wildlife: Planners said a detailed review of the application was “a matter for North Yorkshire Council” because the site was outside the national park .

Climate change commitments: Officers accepted that the gasfield extended into the national park but said the current application was limited to appraisal of gas outside the park.

Recorded livestream of North York Moors National Park planning committee meeting

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