An official online petition calling for a ban on all forms of fracking has passed an important milestone.

It received more than 10,000 signatures this afternoon, which means the government is required to respond.

The petition on the parliamentary website was launched in July 2025 by people in Burniston, North Yorkshire. They are opposing plans in their village by Europa Oil & Gas for a proppant squeeze – a form of lower-volume fracking.

A moratorium in 2019 prevented fracking in England that used larger volumes of liquid.

This followed earthquakes caused by fracking by Cuadrilla at its Preston New Road shale gas site in Lancashire.

But the moratorium did not cover operations planning to use less than 1,000m3 of fluid per stage or 10,000m3 in total.

Since then, opponents of all forms of fracking have described this as a legal loophole. They have urged government to include smaller-scale operations, like the Burniston proppant squeeze, in the moratorium or ban them completely.

Most of the petition’s supporters are from the area around Burniston. Europa’s planning application has received more than 1,500 formal objections. A decision, by North Yorkshire Council’s planning committee, is expected by the end of the year.

The petition closes on 4 January 2026. If it reaches 100,000 signatures, it would be considered for a parliamentary debate.

The creator, Clare Topham, said:

“We want the ban to be extended to cover activities with smaller volumes of liquid.

“Extracting oil and gas will intensify the impact of climate change. There are companies who have submitted planning applications to use what we see as “small-scale fracking” to extract oil and gas. Little is known of the potential risks of this activity.

“We ask the government to close what we feel is a loophole to help protect communities from harm. We believe not doing so could slow the essential transition towards clean, renewable energy.”