North Yorkshire Council rejects calls to brand fracking as 'inappropriate'
It's sparked an outcry because it's approved a proposal to frack in the past
The leadership of a Conservative-led council which sparked an outcry by approving a proposal to frack has rejected calls to label the gas extraction method as “inappropriate”.
North Yorkshire County Council’s 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 council’s leaders have pointed towards 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 announcing 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 said the motions simply looked to reinforce the council’s policies over fracking.
He said: “In this case we are not discussing the rights and wrongs of what we allow in our county, we are talking about saving our very existence.
“If we are going to ask all those third parties who are the major contributors to carbon emissions in this county to take us seriously, we can send strong messages out to tell them that we believe fracking is inappropriate.”
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.
Executive member Councillor Simon Myers, whose 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 Councillor 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.