Residents of the North Yorkshire village facing plans for gas exploration are afraid they may be used as guineapigs for proppant squeeze, a form of lower-volume fracking.

The fears were expressed today by Frack Free Coastal Communities (FFCC), a campaign group opposed to the proposals by Europa Oil & Gas at Burniston, near Scarborough.

The group was responding to the announcement yesterday that North Yorkshire Council’s strategic planning committee would consider the company’s planning application later this month.

FFCC said there had been more than 1,600 objections to the application. Concerns focussed on pollution, climate change and potential earthquakes caused by proppant squeeze, where fluid and proppant are pumped underground at pressures high enough to fracture rocks and release gas.

Objectors include many local people, as well as the MP, Alison Hume, Friends of the Earth, the parish councils of Burniston, Cloughton, Newby and Scalby, and Scarborough town council.

Europa has not yet carried out a 3D seismic survey of the Burniston area to identify faults and geological features. It is seeking an investor to pay for the survey and the drilling plans.

Professor Chris Garforth, of FFCC, said today:

“Residents fear they may be used as guineapigs if the potential risk of earth tremors causing damage to their closely situated homes is not fully and robustly considered with, at the very least, a comprehensive seismic survey being undertaken prior to the application being considered.”

Proppant squeeze is not covered by the moratorium on fracking in England. Last month, the energy minister, Michael Shanks, suggested that the process carried a low risk and was unlikely to be included in the fracking ban promised by the government.

But Professor Garforth said fracking, which caused earthquakes in Lancashire in 2018 and 2019, used lower volumes of fluid than Europa proposed to use at Burniston.

He said:

“Research commissioned by the Oil and Gas Authority (now NSTA) in the wake of the Lancashire earthquakes concluded that it is not possible to predict the seismic response to hydraulic fracturing in relation to site characteristics, fluid volume, rate or pressure; and that where induced seismicity has occurred, mitigation measures have shown only limited success.

“Taken together, this evidence shows that low volume hydraulic fracturing has caused harm and that it is not possible to predict or effectively mitigate against the risk of such harm in other contexts.”

He urged the minister to recognise that the term fracking applied to all hydraulic fracturing operations.

He said:

“Because of the overwhelming scientific research, it is clear that North Yorkshire councillors will need to consider the high risks of this planning application and see it for what it is – fracking – in order to generate huge amounts of money for Europa shareholders and not for the benefit of the residents of Scarborough.”

Europa Oil & Gas has repeatedly denied that proppant squeeze amounted to fracking.

Most recently, the company’s chief executive, William Holland, writing on social media, told opponents:

“Stop scaremongering and support UK growth and prosperity for the people”.

He denied opponents’ claims that the use of proppant squeeze represented a legal loophole.

He also described importing liquified natural gas instead of exploiting domestic supplies as “climate vandalism”.

He said the Burniston gasfield was “conventional”, as opposed to unconventional which often uses fracking. He said it would be drilled in compliance with what he called “the tight regulatory environment that we have in the UK that protects the environment and the interests of local people”.

But Professor Garforth said legal and scientific opinion, backed up by the Oxford English Dictionary, “comes down firmly on the view that fracking refers to all hydraulic fracturing in any rock formation (not just shale), whatever the volume of fluid and proppants and chemicals used.

• A meeting of Frack Free Coastal Communities will be held at 7pm-8.30pm, on Tuesday 27 January 2026, at Burniston Methodist Church
• North Yorkshire Council’s strategic planning meeting is at 1.30pm, on Friday 30 January 2026, at Scarborough Town Hall (more details)