Activists and Liberal Democrats have criticized the government after a minister overturned a Conservative-led council to approve gas drilling on the edge of the Surrey Hills, while acknowledging that the plan would cause damage to the natural landscape.
The decision, formally announced in a written statement by Housing Minister Stuart Andrew, gives the green light to three years of exploratory drilling at a site near the edge of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
The site is located in the southwestern Surrey constituency of Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, who strongly opposes the project.
Activists said the decision showed an “obsession” with finding new fossil fuel developments and could spark protests.
The plan was rejected by the Surrey County Council, but a subsequent public inquiry recommended that it be taken forward, a decision which was later assessed by the Department of Leveling, Housing and Communities, which approved it.
It means the UK oil and gas company will be able to operate a fractured gas well near Dunsfold, south of Guildford, near the AONB boundary, with permission for a new road junction, a road access and a fence around the boundary. .
The decision, taken by Andrew after Michael Gove, the leveling secretary, was denied because his constituency is in a nearby part of Surrey, accepted that the drilling would involve “a significant level of landscape and visual impacts the proposal “, including the loss. of fences, which is mitigated by the finite period of operation.
Noting that allowing the project violated Surrey’s guidelines, the decision also admitted that “the site had not been shown to have been selected to minimize adverse environmental impacts.”
The proposal, he added, “would harm the landscape and appearance of the area and degrade the qualities of the AONB’s environment”, saying that while the impact on the AONB would be limited, the area “is of a high sensitivity ”.
The ministerial decision said that “limited” weight should be given to any local economic benefit, but that the overall assessment was that “exploration and assessment are a necessary part of mineral development and without it, the currently recognized profits from production cannot be realized “.
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While the decision is unrelated to fracking, permission for an exploratory gas drilling site at a site like this will resurrect memories of previous protests against fracking schemes.
Following major local opposition, along with concerns about the possibility of earthquakes, fracking has stalled in the UK since 2019. In April, ministers announced a security study. which raised expectations that the practice, which is popular with some Conservative MPs, could be resumed.
Greenpeace said ministers had an “unhealthy obsession with finding new fossil fuels”. Doug Parr, its UK policy director, said: “With this decision, the government is completely undermining local democracy, the planning laws that are supposed to protect our designated landscapes and the climate crisis in one go. cop “.
Tom Fyans, the chief political officer of the rural charity ERCP, said the move was “an absurd decision that would provoke fury and despair” and could spark mass protests. He said: “It is extraordinary, given the urgent need to remove fossil fuels, that the government considers it appropriate to give the green light to a gas field and damage the environment of an area of exceptional natural beauty.”
The decision will be made by the Liberal Democrats, who are campaigning on the so-called Blue Wall: the seats in the Conservative-occupied suburbs mainly around London, where discontent with the Conservatives, and especially with Boris Johnson, makes them politically vulnerable.
While Hunt’s seat is relatively safe, the site is very close to the Guildford constituency, where incumbent Conservative MP Angela Richardson has a just over 3,000 majority over Lib Democrats.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said it was “shameful that the Conservatives have ignored the concerns of local communities” and approved the plan. “Michael Gove must reconsider this reckless decision that runs the risk of doing irreparable damage to our precious landscape while undermining efforts to address the climate emergency,” he said.
UK Oil and Gas was contacted for comment.