Organisations in the North Yorkshire village of Burniston are urging the Environment Agency (EA) to extend its consultation on plans for drilling and fracking.

The deadline for comments is tomorrow (21 October 2026).

But local campaigners and councillors have called for more time to review two documents on the environmental permit, which the EA revised earlier this month.

The EA acknowledged what it called “drafting errors and “a small number of minor typographical errors and inconsistencies”.

Burniston Parish Council has called for an extension to the consultation of at least two months.

The local campaign group, Frack Free Coastal Communities, said it needed more time for a “comprehensive analysis of shortcomings that affect the EA’s technical analysis and appraisal of the permit application”.

DrillOrDrop asked the EA to respond to the local complaints and calls for more time.

The organisation said it needed more time to reply to us. A spokesperson described the issue as “a fairly complex matter” that required “a lot of different input from different officers and teams”.

The spokesperson added:

“it may take a day or two to provide a response”.

This article will be updated with any EA reply.

Details

The EA announced on 3 August 2026 that it was “minded to approve” the permit for gas exploration and lower-volume fracking at a site on the edge of Burniston.

But after widespread criticism of the draft permit, the EA extended the consultation and then issued revised versions of the draft decision document and the draft permit.

Analysis of the amended documents by DrillOrDrop found at least 58 changes to the updated draft decision document and more than 20 in the draft permit report here.

Many complaints had not been addressed in the revisions.

The parish council chair, Richard Parsons, told DrillOrDrop:

“Burniston Parish Council and members of our community have become extremely concerned about the changes that have been made to the Environmental Agency report into the Burniston Gas drill licence. There have, very recently, been a large number of changes many of which do not just cover minor errors.

“We appreciate that the EA realise that in order to hold a proper public consultation the end date needed extending. Taking into account the volume and importance of the changes, closing this consultation on October 21st does not leave enough time for anyone to respond in any detail. Many of our residents did not receive the change of consultation date letter, from the EA, until October 14th.

“It is worth noting that most of the changes and the extension, were made as a result of the original consultation, whereby the many and important EA errors in the report, were pointed out. 

“Burniston parish councillors have written to the Environment Agency requesting the public consultation is adequately extended to allow everyone to read, understand and comment in a timely manner. We would suggest this extension is for at least a further two months and whenever the EA make further changes, further extensions are applied.”

Frack Free Coastal Communities (FFCC) said:

“Revisions to the draft decision document are extensive and much more than the correction of minor typographical errors.

“The EA has admitted that they are aligning their terminology with that used by the applicant. Given the contradictions and inconsistencies in that terminology, some of which have been made worse by the revisions, proper public scrutiny of the revised document requires significant time.

“To close the consultation on 21st October does not give sufficient time and goes against the spirit of the EA’s published code of practice for consultations.”

FFCC also said:

“Letters to local residents informing them of the revisions and the new consultation deadline only began arriving on 12th October and some residents have not yet received theirs. This is contrary to the standards the EA holds itself to.”

It added:

“we require additional time to scrutinise the terminology used in the revised draft and compare it to the applicant’s documentation so that we can submit a comprehensive analysis of shortcomings that affect the EA’s technical analysis and appraisal of the permit application.

“This includes lack of evidence to support conclusions; confusion over the meaning of ‘phase’ and ‘stage’ of hydraulic fracturing and consequently over the potential volumes of fracking fluid to be used; and confusion about the purpose of the hydraulic fracturing (proppant squeeze) in the specific context of the target formations for the proposed well.”

DrillOrDrop will report separately on responses to the revised documents.

• The permit consultation is separate from the planning application, which was refused by North Yorkshire Council earlier this year.