Star comment: Farmer Paul's pain relief over gas drilling date
The experience of Shropshire farmer Paul Hickson is a stark illustration of how planning matters do not exist in a bubble, but profoundly affect people and their lives.
In July 2012 Mr Hickson signed a form giving the energy company Dart Energy the licence to put an exploratory drill pad in a field at the family's farm at Dudleston Heath.
In doing so he signed up to a whole load of stress for himself and his family. It has been so bad that the fact that Dart Energy has missed a contractual deadline to start work on the site is like a lifting of a burden from his shoulders.
Ah, you ask, if it was going to cause him so much worry, why did he sign up in the first place? And wouldn't that period of worry be more than offset by shedloads of money that would have come his way?
On the first point, he signed the licence agreement on the advice of his late father, whose noble view was that while it was the family's land, what lay beneath belonged to the country. Nor was Paul aware at the time of the arguments about the potential damage drilling for coal bed methane could do.
As for becoming rich, he says nothing would be further from the truth. All he would have got, he says, is compensation to restore the land after the drilling. An added twist of the knife would be the loss of organic farm status for his organic farm, which would have rendered it worthless and unsaleable.
The proposals have been controversial and have raised passions. Consequently, on top of everything else, hurtful things have been said to Mr Hickson and his family.
All in all then, this is a cautionary tale. Mr Hickson is urging other farmers not to sign similar licences as he does not want anybody to go through what he has been through.
That is too sweeping. Paul evidently did not fully appreciate what he was signing up for and, although this particular scheme is not fracking, could not have known how the fracking debate would subsequently raise the temperature.
With the right advice and the right knowledge, other landowners in the same position will be able to weigh up the pros and cons and make decisions which they will not have cause to regret.
Meanwhile, just as the campaigners will be celebrating this apparently fatal blow to the drilling plans, Mr Hickson can celebrate getting his life back.
