Showdown over plans for £50m Yorkshire gas plant

RESIDENTS are heading for a showdown with energy chiefs who have unveiled a £50m scheme for a processing plant near one of Yorkshire's most attractive villages.

Moorland Energy revealed yesterday that it wanted to build a "small" gas processing facility on a proposed site (2.2 hectares) which is currently farmland off Hurrell Lane to the east of Thornton Dale and south-east of Wilton.

As reported by the Yorkshire Post, the scheme to build gas pipelines and a processing facility in Ryedale comes after exploratory drilling at Ebberston revealed enough reserves to make extraction viable.

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But artists' impressions of the site were greeted with bemusement yesterday by locals. One depicting the plant after landscaping showed virtually no impact on the rolling countryside at all.

But a view of how the site might look before landscaping showed a line of metal structures and industrial-looking buildings against a backdrop of green fields with the A170 just visible in the distance.

Coun Geoff Acomb, who represents the Thornton Dale ward on Ryedale Council, said: "There will be quite a few questions to ask about it. We don't know what this processing involves for one thing.

"It is definitely an industrial site, and looks industrial. They have not given a view from the A170 or Wilton, which looks across from the west, or the edge of Thornton Dale.

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"If it is going to be shiny metal that glints in the sun, it is not going to be invisible. What is small in their eyes may not be small in our eyes."

Moorland Energy, an independent onshore oil and gas exploration and production company, launches a public consultation about its Ryedale Gas Project today, in the countdown to a planning application this spring.

The company has invited residents from the Thornton Dale, Wilton, Allerston and Ebberston areas to two public exhibitions at Thornton Dale village hall this afternoon and tomorrow morning and at Allerston Village Hall tomorrow afternoon.

It will showcase proposals to build an engineering works at the company's existing well site near Ebberston and lay two underground pipelines running south-east for five miles under farmland to the proposed facility off Hurrell Lane.

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The scheme also includes a new access road from the A170 to Hurrell Lane and a 100-metre underground pipeline running south to Britain's mains gas network, which already runs under the area.

The company plans to begin construction during 2011 to become fully operational by early 2013, producing gas for an estimated five to eight years.

Some 20 permanent and 150 temporary jobs would be created during construction, with recruitment targeted at the local area, according to chief executive Lawrie Erasmus.

He said the scheme was different to other developments in the area because the gas would not be used to generate electricity on-site, but would be processed to supply into the UK's mains gas network.

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Moorland Energy also hopes, in the future, to be able to drill further wells from the same well site to access other local sources of natural gas.

Lorraine Allanson, who runs a bed and breakfast and holiday cottage complex near Pickering, said: "This seems to have come out the blue and we don't want it to impact on what is an absolutely stunning area."

She added: "This is also in the Vale of Pickering and full of tourists, which is the biggest industry. There all sorts of issues including safety."

View made village world-famous

The "thatched cottage" view of Thornton Dale is famous the world over on postcards and chocolate boxes.

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The community traces its history back to the Neolithic period with evidence of hill farming north of the village.

Roman pottery was found dated between 50BC-AD50.

After the Norman Conquest, the manor house was given to the Crown. William the Conqueror later gave it to his sister Adelaide.

The parish church is thought to date from the 12th century and has a Norman font.