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09
Feb 2023
North Yorkshire County Council rejects calls to brand fracking as ‘inappropriate’
The leadership of North Yorkshire County Council has rejected calls to label fracking as “inappropriate”.
The council's Conservative-led executive said it would not support Liberal Democrat and Green motions to declare hydraulic fracturing as inappropriate in the county, despite the council having declared a climate emergency and pushing forward plans to reduce carbon.
While the authority's leaders have pointed towards Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reimposing the government’s ban on fracking which was last year lifted by Liz Truss, opposition councillors have claimed the moratorium could be ended again.
The recommendation to a full meeting of the authority later this month comes three years after Third Energy announced it would not use planning consent for the hydraulic fracturing of rock to extract gas in Ryedale which the council’s planning committee granted it, triggering a huge and sustained outcry.
The planning decision in 2016 lead to hundreds of thousands of pounds of North Yorkshire taxpayers money being spent on policing protests outside the Kirby Misperton site.
A meeting of the executive heard opposition members implore the authority to show leadership over climate change policies and agree that fracking, which was “the most polluting fossil fuel extraction” was incompatible with its ambition to be part of the country’s first carbon negative region.
Green councillor Arnold Warneken, who represents Ouseburn, said the motions simply looked to reinforce the council’s policies over fracking.
He said:
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However, the authority’s top legal officer, Barry Khan, advised the executive that approving the motion could leave councillors open to accusations of pre-determining potential hydraulic fracturing planning applications, which in turn could undermine the council’s ability to decide on schemes.
He said the Localism Act stated councillors could not be accused of pre-determining a proposal solely on the basis of something they had previously stated and while some other councils may have taken “a more liberal view” of the legislation he believed a cautionary approach was right.
Mr Khan said approving the motion would create “an element of risk” that was unnecessary given that the council had already set out its positions in its Minerals and Waste Plan.
Cllr Simon Myers, whose executive portfolio includes planning, said those pushing the motions risked having decisions taken out of the hands of locally elected councillors and given to government inspectors instead.
The authority’s opposition leader Cllr Bryn Griffiths highlighted how neighbouring East Riding of Yorkshire Council, which also has significant amounts of its jurisdiction under oil and gas exploration licences, had recently passed a similar policy opposing fracking.
The Liberal Democrat said councils had set out their belief that fracking was environmentally-damaging without raising issues over pre-determination.
Green councillor Andy Brown added it was quite reasonable for a councillor to take a political position on fracking as well as sit on a planning committee and consider evidence about whether the proposal would be environmentally damaging.
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