Surrey campaigners lose high court challenge over gas drilling

Campaigners have lost a High Court challenge over a decision to allow a gas drilling project in rural Surrey.

Residents' group Protect Dunsfold brought legal action alongside Waverley Borough Council over a decision to allow an exploratory gas well to be dug near the village of Dunsfold.

The proposed site is located in the Surrey Hills, in an area of great landscape value (AGLV), and sits on the border of an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).

The area's MP, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, previously called the move to grant planning permission "bitterly disappointing and wrong both economically and environmentally".

At a hearing in June, the court in London heard the campaigners' and the council's challenge against the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and UK Oil and Gas (Ukog).

But in a ruling on Thursday, Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed the bids.

Lawyers for Protect Dunsfold had argued that their situation was "directly comparable" to another gas drilling case near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, where the DLUHC dismissed the potential project due to its impact on climate change.

But Mrs Justice Steyn said climate change "was not one of the main issues at the Dunsfold inquiry" and that Surrey's climate change strategy was "not predicated upon restricting hydrocarbon exploration".

She said: "The question whether the emissions from the proposal rendered it contrary to policy, and weighed against the grant of permission, was not an issue at all, still less a principal, important or controversial issue.

"Neither the inspector nor the Secretary of State can be criticised for not addressing a point no-one raised."

Lawyers for the campaigners and the council also claimed Government policy related to protecting AONBs was not properly considered when giving the project the green light.

But Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed this argument and said: "The fact that he expressed his conclusion as to the weight to be given to the assessed harm to the AONB, collectively with the other harms that he had found, does not provide a positive indication that he failed to apply the policy."

Following the ruling, Protect Dunsfold's lawyers said they were considering an appeal.

The group's director Sarah Godwin said: "Protect Dunsfold Ltd is deeply disappointed that the judicial review judgment handed down today has gone against us.

"It seems incredible that within the current context of extreme weather conditions throughout the Northern Hemisphere, planning policy still supports such speculative and unnecessary onshore oil and gas exploration.

"The court's decision shows that the Government needs to radically overhaul national planning policy to redress the balance so that the planning authorities always have to take the full climate and environmental impact of such proposals fully into account."