“Your Waverley’s fight with others to stop exploratory drilling on the Loxley Site in Dunsfold suffered a punishing setback yesterday when an appeal court judge refused permission to take the case further.

Lord Justice Stuart-Smith said an appeal had no prospect of success. The Court of Appeal’s decision was final and could not be reviewed or appealed. He said:

“ The planning permission will now remain in full force and effect for its full term”, 

UKOG chief executive Stephen Sanderson was jubilant:

“We are pleased that Lord Justice Stuart-Smith has once again dismissed the legal challenge to our Loxley project and has confirmed that its planning consent is entirely lawful, as the Company and its counsel has maintained.

“We believe that a successful project will be beneficial to local and national level energy and economic interests and is fully in keeping with the government’s Hydrogen, Energy Security and Net Zero strategies.”

Cllr Williams’s reaction at last night’s Executive Council meeting will be included in a post tomorrow.

He was among thousands of Waverley residents who opposed drilling and who have slammed the decision by a Bankrupt Government that is reneging on its carbon-zero pledges.

Surrey County Council had twice refused the company’s planning application, but the housing minister, Stuart Andrew, overturned this on appeal.

At a court hearing in June, Protect Dunsfold argued that Mr Andrew’s decision was inconsistent with a similar one announced on the same day. The group also failed to properly consider the impact on the nearby Surrey Hills area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).

The minister had refused permission for well testing at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire because the unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions on climate change conflicted with national planning policy.

Waverley

Estelle Dehon KC, for Protect Dunsfold, said the Dunsfold and Ellesmere Port decisions were made concurrently, the level of emissions were in a similar range, and the climate impact was discussed in both cases.

For Waverley Borough Council, Jenny Wigley KC said the housing minister had agreed the harm to the AONB from the drilling site represented a “significant adverse impact”. But in his decision, the weight given to landscape harm was considered moderate. This was “in stark contrast”, she said, to the weight given in the decision to the benefits of gas exploration.

Ruling

Mrs Justice Steyn said she was “not persuaded” that the inspector had failed to reflect policy on protecting the AONB. She said he “expressly recorded” Surrey County Council’s submissions that great weight should be accorded to harm to the AONB.

The judge rejected the argument by Protect Dunsfold and Waverley Borough Council that there was a contrast in the way the inspector and minister considered the benefits of the development versus the harm. She said:

“The fact that harm is to the AONB increases the weight to be attributed to it. But the harm to the AONB from a temporary development such as this clearly can, in principle attract moderate weight in the overall planning balance.”

On the inconsistency between the Dunsfold and Ellesmere Port decisions, the judge said there were similarities in the cases. But she said:

“In my judgment, the decisions are not sufficiently similar to trigger application of the consistency principle, and it is clear that in the circumstances the Ellesmere Port decision is not one which no reasonable decision-maker would have failed to take into account.”

In Surrey, the climate change strategy was “not predicated upon restricting hydrocarbon exploration”, Mrs Justice Steyn noted.

Reaction

Sarah Godwin, director of Protect Dunsfold, said:

“Protect Dunsfold Ltd is deeply disappointed that the Judicial Review judgement handed down today has gone against us.

“It seems incredible that within the current context of extreme weather conditions throughout the Northern Hemisphere, planning policy still supports such speculative and unnecessary onshore oil and gas exploration.

“The Court’s decision shows that the Government needs to radically overhaul national planning policy to redress the balance so that the planning authorities always have to take the full climate and environmental impact of such proposals fully into account. 

“We will continue to work to change Government policies, and fight for recognition of the very real and imminent threat to our environment, businesses and everyday life related to the continued search for fossil fuels.”