Borehole plan for moors is attacked (From Gazette & Herald)
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Borehole plan for North York Moors is attacked
9:05am Friday 8th June 2012 in News
A PROPOSAL to drill a borehole in the heart of the North York Moors National Park to test for natural gas has been condemned.
Oil and gas exploration and production firm Egdon Resources wants to sink a well and create two access tracks on land near Great Ayton, and has submitted a planning application.
The firm, which sank a borehole close to the site in 2006 but failed to find gas, said the tests would involve drilling into what it hopes is a reservoir and extracting any gas through natural pressure and piping it to a Teeside plant.
The application will be considered by the North York Moors National Park Authority on July 19.
Egdon managing director Mark Abbott said there had been a “very positive attitude by the public to the proposals as a whole” at a public exhibition, but Tom Chadwick, chairman of the North Yorkshire Moors Association, said the borehole would blot an attractive landscape surrounded by designated Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Areas.
He said: “It feels like the national park is under siege, and it’s outrageous that the North York Moors could be reduced by these developments.”
Colin Grice says...
9:09am Sun 10 Jun 12
It is an exploration project and if extraction in the future was viable it would be an entirely separate project.
The earlier exploratory well caused no significant problems despite the wild claims made in attempt to stir up opposition.
Most people found the activity quite interesting and it was all over in a few weeks.
Trying to portray the park as 'under siege' by linking it to the Potash survey drilling some 25 miles away is rather mischievous.