Fears as Shropshire gas drilling decision delayed

Shropshire Council had anticipated that the planning application would be considered at the next North Planning Committee meeting, which is scheduled for next Tuesday.

However, due to officers needing more information about the application, the item will now not be discussed until after Christmas.

Shelley Davies, planning committee officer, said: "Due to the concerns raised in the last meeting officers went back to the applicant for more information. The information is not ready to be discussed so therefore we could not put the item on the agenda. It will be discussed after Christmas."

In October members of Shropshire Council's Planning Committee unanimously said they were minded to oppose plans for a temporary exploratory borehole for coal bed methane in Dudleston Heath, near Ellesmere, with a decision set to be taken at a later date.

They said the impact on local people and the environment was too significant for it to be approved.

But Dart Energy, which is behind the plans, has insisted any work carried out would be on a small scale and would be carried out safely.

Duncan Kerr, from Frack-Free North Shropshire, said the delay was worrying.

He said: "This news gives me grave concerns. The application is just sitting there with no decision.

"The longer it goes on the more concerned we are.

"At the last meeting the councillors were minded to oppose the plans so it would be very disappointing if they do not stand by that."

Since the meeting Frack Free Dundleston, a separate group, have been examining the planning officer's verdict in more detail.

A spokesman for Frack Free Dundleston said: "The statement sets out to reach a conclusion that the application must be approved and it appears that anything that is inconvenient to that conclusion is either dismissed or ignored.

"These observations have been passed on to the council at senior levels to help demonstrate how the councillor's verdict was indeed the correct one.

"Clearly our objective is to help ensure that the councillors are not persuaded to change their minds because ultimately it is they that make the decision.

"We also need to make sure that the inaccuracies in the planning statement are well understood because we think that that will reduce the chances of Dart Energy successfully appealing against the decision.

"Because we are finding so much new evidence, we are increasingly confident that the decision will be to reject the application. One fascinating new piece of evidence relates to the fact that so many natural springs feed into the chosen field. Some of the older houses in the area have a right of access to that specific field for the purposes of obtaining drinking water. The right is built into their deeds."