Protest marching against gas drilling plans near Scarborough
It'll take place this afternoon
Last updated 22nd Mar 2025
A protest march against a planned gas drilling site near Scarborough and the North York Moors National Park will take place today.
Campaigners are coming together to demonstrate against plans submitted by Europa Oil & Gas.
The oil and gas company is seeking to install a 38m high gas drilling rig on land in Burniston, near Scarborough, as part of its “proppant squeeze” project which was submitted last week.
If plans are approved by North Yorkshire Council, the initial scheme at Burniston would test whether gas could be extracted on a commercially viable basis and, if further approvals were granted, extraction could take place for “about 20 years”.
Residents and campaigners said the march through Burniston would be “a show of opposition against plans to drill for gas under local villages”.
John Atkinson, a member of Frack Free Scarborough, said: “We can’t just rely on the planning process to protect us.
“It is vital we back up individual objections with a collective show of opposition on the streets and within our organisations. We intend to be a force that can’t be ignored.”
Concerns and opposition have also been raised by politicians including councillors, local MP Alison Hume, and the elected Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, David Skaith.
Chris Garforth of Frack Free Coastal Communities said: “We’re fed up with being fobbed off with misinformation and platitudes from fossil-fuel dinosaurs and the company is playing down residents’ justified concerns about damage to the local rural and coastal environment.”
The protest is scheduled to start at 1pm on Saturday, March 22 at Burniston and Cloughton Village Hall and the march will end at the entrance of the proposed drilling site on Coastal Road, Burniston.
What does the company say?
In a statement Europa said: 'The UK has one of the most thorough regulatory upstream environments in the world which ensures that all gas drilling operations are performed taking into account all local considerations. This is why we have had to commission 13 independent reports to support our planning permission. These reports and the planning application are available for people to view on a website that we have set up dedicated solely to the drilling operation at Burniston ( https://cloughton-community.co.uk/). We recognise that local residents have questions about our drilling plans at Burniston so we have also included information about the drilling operations and the need for domestic gas supply in the UK. The government recognises that the UK will require gas until at least 2050. More importantly, the government data highlights that domestic sources of gas result in less emissions than imported gas and provide security of supply in these politically uncertain times.
The planned drilling operations could demonstrate that the 192 billion cubic feet of gas in place at Cloughton can be commercially produced, which would displace LNG imports that result in over 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than domestic gas. The drilling is a regulated activity and will not pollute the water table, damage the heritage coast or affect local property prices, and will only increase HGV traffic by 1% during the operation. Anyone who cares about the environment and is concerned about climate change should be supporting not only our plans to drill for gas at Burniston, but also any other upstream activities that will increase domestic supplies of gas.
Following successful appraisal drilling operations any subsequent development of the Cloughton gas field will create local jobs, be unnoticeable once in production, diversify the UK gas supply and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the gas that we consume in the UK.'