A crucial meeting tomorrow (Friday January 30 2026) to consider gas drilling plans at Burniston near Scarborough has been postponed.

DrillOrDrop has heard that the delay follows multiple local requests for the government to call in the application. This could take the decision out of the hands of North Yorkshire Council.

Last week, council officers recommended the planning application from Europa Oil & Gas should be approved with conditions.

But there were requests for a call-in from Burniston Parish Council, MP Alison Hume, the campaign group Frack Free Coastal Communities and the Scarborough councillor Rich Maw.

We understand North Yorkshire Council was instructed not to approve the application tomorrow until the Planning Inspectorate had considered the call-in requests.

Public speakers at the meeting received an email this morning from the council telling them about the postponement. The email said:

“With the support of members of the Strategic Planning Committee, the Assistant Chief Executive Legal and Democratic Services has taken this course of action in light of a request received yesterday from the Planning Inspectorate to the Local Planning Authority not to issue a decision in respect of application ref: NY/2025/0030/ENV construction of a temporary wellsite near Burniston pending the Planning Inspectorate’s consideration of a request made by interested parties to the Secretary of State to call in the application.”

A formal statement from the council later said:

“A number of interested parties have written to the Planning Inspectorate requesting that the application be called in for determination by the Secretary of State. Yesterday (Wednesday, January 28) we received correspondence from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government asking that no decision is issued in this case while the Secretary of State considers these requests.

“The decision to postpone the meeting has been made as a result of this correspondence, as well as discussions with councillors who sit on the strategic planning committee. We will not be in a position to set a new date for the committee until we receive confirmation from the Planning Inspectorate on whether the application is to be called in.

“As this is a live planning application, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this stage.” 

The meeting had been due to be held at 1.30pm at Scarborough Town Hall. Opponents of the scheme, which included proppant squeeze, a form of lower volume fracking, had planned to lobby councillors outside the meeting.

North Yorkshire Council said a revised date for the committee to consider the application would be arranged “in due course”.

Steve Mason, a member of North Yorkshire Council and campaigner with Frack Free United, said this morning:

“The decision to postpone is very sensible. The conflict between national and local policy makes it impossible for Cllrs to make a sound decision.

“The definition needs to be clarified to capture all types of fracking and close the loopholes that allow gaming of the planning system.

“History provides the evidence: if you are shattering rock under communities to extract fossil fuels, it’s fracking, no matter how much fluid you pump into the ground.”

Tony Bosworth, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:

“North Yorkshire Council is right to delay a decision on this deeply controversial fracking scheme while the government is still reviewing its position.

“Fracking blights our countryside, won’t cut UK energy bills and is deeply unpopular with local communities.

“Ministers have promised to ban fracking. That ban must include proppant squeeze, a low-level form of fracking, or communities across large parts of England risk seeing it creep in through the back door.”

DrillOrDrop invited Europa Oil & Gas to comment.