A North Yorkshire councillor is asking the government to call in the decision on the application for gas drilling and lower volume fracking at Burniston, near Scarborough.

In a letter to the housing secretary today, independent Cllr Rich Maw, said the application “raises issues of clear national and strategic importance that, in my view, should not be determined solely al local authority level.

The proposal, by Europa Oil & Gas Limited, is due to be considered by the council’s strategic planning committee on Friday (30 January 2026) in Scarborough.

More than 1,600 formal objections have been made to the application.

North Yorkshire planners have recommended the scheme should be approved with 38 conditions.

Cllr Maw said:

“the proposal sits uneasily with the Government’s statutory climate obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008 and with the direction of national planning policy.”

He said the National Planning Policy Framework requires decision-makers to support the transition to a net-zero future and to give proper weight to climate mitigation.

He said:

“The facilitation of new onshore fossil fuel extraction (even on a ‘temporary’ basis) risks cutting directly across these objectives and undermining public confidence in the coherence of national climate policy.”

Cllr Maw added that the proposal is in the North Yorkshire Heritage Coast, an environmentally sensitive and nationally-valued landscape.

“Industrial gas appraisal activity in such a location raises issues that go beyond local amenity impacts and speaks to the wider question of how protected coastal environments are treated in the context of energy policy. Any decision here is likely to set a significant precedent.”

He also raised the issue of the proposed use of proppant squeeze at Burniston, a form of lower volume fracking to release gas from rocks surrounding the borehole.

Earlier this month, the energy minister, Michael Shanks, said his department was reviewing lower-volume fracking.

Cllr Maw said:

“It would be in inappropriate, and potentially perverse, for a local authority to determine this application while relevant national policy and legislative positions remain unsettled.

He said:

“I believe the public interest would be best served by Secretary of State determination, following full and transparent consideration.”

He said North Yorkshire Council should defer any decision until the minister had considered the call-in.

Concerns over “undermining democracy”

Frack Free Scarborough has raised concerns that North Yorkshire Council is “undermining democracy” over this week’s Burniston planning meeting.

The council has advised members of the strategic planning meeting to arrive before a lobby outside Scarborough Town Hall.

The campaign group told its supporters:

“Peaceful public demonstration is a fundamental democratic right, protected under freedom of assembly and expression.

“In a planning context it serves the crucial purpose of ensuring elected representatives directly encounter the strength of community feeling before making decisions that affect those communities.

“By arranging for councillors to bypass the lobby, officers are effectively undermining this core democratic function.”

The planning meeting is due to begin at 1.30pm. Committee members have been advised to arrive by 12 noon. The lobby had been due to begin at 12.30pm.

Frack Free Scarborough said:

“Planning officers are required to maintain strict impartiality in the planning process. Yet by recommending approval of the scheme and then arranging for councillors to effectively avoid the lobby, they appear to be framing peaceful democratic protest as a threat, potentially reinforcing a narrative that their position is reasonable while community opposition is illegitimate. This could influence councillors’ decisions.”

Daniel Harry, head of North Yorkshire Council’s head of democratic services, told the York Press:

“Members of the strategic planning committee and supporting officers have been asked to attend Scarborough Town Hall in advance of the 1.30pm start so they can be briefed on arrangements for the meeting.”