Public inquiries loom on plans for two sites
PUBLIC INQUIRIES are planned on whether shale gas reserves at sites in South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire within ten miles of each other can be explored by Ineos.
Last year, Ineos lodged plans to drill exploratory wells for shale gas around Harthill, in Rotherham, and at a site in Marsh Lane near Eckington, North Derbyshire, to strong opposition from local anti-fracking campaigners, conservation bodies and local politicians.
Both Rotherham Council and Derbyshire County Council were due to make decisions on the applications after receiving thousands of comments from the public – but Ineos asked the Government to intervene on the grounds the council decisions were taking too long and now the Planning Inspectorate is due to hold hearings.
Councillors on Rotherham Council’s planning board voted unanimously to oppose Ineos’s Harthill application this week; an advisory decision that will be passed to the public inquiry which is provisionally due to take place in April. No date has yet been set for the potential Derbyshire inquiry.
Rother Valley MP Kevin Barron accused Ineos of “bypassing local democracy” with the company’s push for public inquiries instead of adhering to local decisions. Ineos said in December the decision to pursue the strategy had not been taken lightly but it could not wait “indefinitely”.
A third planning application by Ineos for similar work at another nearby site in Woodsetts, Rotherham, was submitted to Rotherham Council in November.