July 14: Third Energy insist Ryedale fracking application has not ‘collapsed’

From: John Dewar, Operations Director, Third Energy, Knapton Generating Station, East Knapton, North Yorkshire.

YOUR article (The Yorkshire Post, July 11) regarding Third Energy’s application for permission to hydraulically fracture our existing well at Kirby Misperton gives a misleading impression, some of which is due to excitable headline writing, some due to the weakness of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) procedures.

Contrary to your headline, our application has not “collapsed” but is proceeding as we clearly state. It’s a shame your headline writer cannot read to the end of your own article. Most of the misleading impression is because the planning officer’s objection letter – normally a private document – has been published following a FOI request, yet neither Third Energy’s response nor the full planning application has yet to be published.

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To assess our application on the basis of this information is akin to seeing that England were 40 for 3 in the first morning of the First Test Match against Australia and assuming the whole Ashes series was lost.

The fact is that our application runs to seven thick volumes and the planning officer raised a small number of minor objections. These ranged from a spelling error in an address to the fact that the current Ordnance Survey map for Ryedale does not show a recent development in the area. Certain important pieces of information which had been provided in the Environmental Statement – such as the flood risk assessment, gas production, air quality, water quality, noise, waste, traffic and lighting management plan etc. – were requested by the planning officer to be brought forward to the planning application itself. Third Energy has written to North Yorkshire County Council answering its questions.

Third Energy has been drilling for and producing gas, and generating electricity in North Yorkshire, safely and with a low environmental impact, for more than two decades and continues to do so. Plans to expand our operations at Ebberston Moor, Pickering, Kirby Misperton and at our other sites are all moving ahead. Future applications will follow the same high standards and regulatory rigour applied to all our existing and past operations.

While our application for operations at the existing KM8 well at Kirby Misperton will receive more scrutiny because of the high public interest, operations will be for a shorter duration and involve less noise and less traffic than many of the wells we have drilled and completed safely in the area.

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