Huge gas storage caverns get the go-ahead

E.ON UK was given permission by East Riding Council yesterday to create up to 10 underground gas storage caverns at Whitehill Farm, near Withernwick.

Buried more than a mile underground, the caverns would be capable of storing about 750 million cubic metres of gas and would help protect supplies for up to 20 million customers as the UK becomes increasingly reliant on imported gas.

The facility will be used to store gas at times of low demand and sell it back to the national grid when demand peaks.

Construction will bring hundreds of workers to the area and come as a boost to local businesses, which previously benefited from the sprawling development of nine caverns at nearby Aldbrough by Southern and Scottish Energy.

By the end of this decade it is estimated the UK will get up to 70 per cent of its gas through European pipelines and liquified natural gas which is bought in by sea.

A report said a reliable and secure gas supply is “vital” to support the day to day lives of most people in the UK.

Last year a Commons select committee said the Department of Energy and Climate Change “should be concerned about the lack of gas storage used to manage seasonal demand fluctuations. It should aim to double the UK’s current gas storage levels by 2020 in order to avoid exposure to gas supply interruptions and price spikes and in the longer term to ensure a resilient gas supply to flexible gas plants acting as a ‘back-up’ to intermittent electricity generated by wind”.

Before the project begins a new temporary haul road will be built between Great Hatfield Road and the B1242 with other improvements made to local roads.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust had objected to what it said would be the industrialisation of an “undisturbed rural area”.