Planning hearing into fracking firm’s ‘listening well’ application

A HEARING into plans by fracking firm Ineos for a “listening well” in South Yorkshire is to take place today.

The Planning Inspectorate is holding a pre-inquiry hearing relating to the firm’s proposed 1.7 mile-deep well on land to the east of Harthill, near Rotherham, to extract rock samples for testing. The meeting, which is held in public and takes place at Rotherham Town Hall at 10am, precedes a full two-week inquiry from April 24 to decide whether the application will be approved.

The purpose of a pre-inquiry hearing is to establish what will be discussed during the main inquiry and which witnesses will be called to give evidence.

Rotherham Council had been due to make a decision on the application, but Ineos asked the Government to intervene on the grounds that the process was taking too long.

Councillors on Rotherham Council’s planning board voted unanimously to oppose Ineos’s Harthill application last month, an advisory decision that will be passed to the public inquiry.

Ineos, one of seven firms with licences to carry out exploratory work in Yorkshire, has submitted similar plans at Woodsetts in Rotherham borough, and Marsh Lane in north east Derbyshire.

The firm has already carried out a three-dimensional ‘seismic survey’ of the underground rock structure in a 250 square kilometre area of the East Midlands, to help it work out the best areas to drill for shale gas. It is understood similar work will be carried out in North Yorkshire, where the firm also has licences, in 2018.

Plans are thought to be at an early stage, and Ineos is expected to carry out a consultation with residents once it has identified its proposed sites.