Marketing campaign group SOS Biscathorpe is bringing authorized motion in opposition to the Division of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities over the choice to allow exploratory oil drilling and manufacturing on the web site in Biscathorpe.
The group’s barrister, Estelle Dehon KC, instructed the Excessive Court docket in London that main growth in AONBs is permitted solely in “distinctive circumstances” and should be “within the public curiosity”, and that the planning inspector had failed to think about each of those points collectively.
Ms Dehon mentioned on Wednesday that the inspector didn’t think about renewable vitality sources as a substitute for drilling for oil, which amounted to an illegal error.
She argued he had wrongly and “irrationally” put “nice weight” on the “minuscule half” that extracted oil from the positioning would play within the UK’s vitality safety.
She added that his report acknowledged that the overall quantity of oil anticipated to be recovered from the positioning over the manufacturing interval would “quantity to solely a number of days’ provide” for the UK and that there was a risk the gasoline may very well be exported and never used domestically in any respect.
The Division for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is defending the problem, telling the courtroom the choice in November 2023 was lawful and that renewable vitality is presently “not an alternative choice to oil manufacturing”.
Richard Moules KC, for the division, mentioned in written submissions that planning permission was granted with consideration given to the realm’s AONB standing however that drilling for brand new oil was within the public curiosity.
Of the inspector, Mr Moules continued: “He recognised the robust coverage safety for the AONB and the coverage expectation in favour of conserving and enhancing the AONB.”
“Within the circumstances of this utility, growth for renewable vitality will not be a substitute for oil manufacturing.”
He added: “The inspector thought of nationwide coverage and located that there’s a want for indigenous fossil gasoline provide throughout the transition to a low-carbon economic system.”
Activists stood exterior the courtroom holding banners bearing slogans together with “soil not oil” and “the science is obvious, no new oil wells”, with a number of campaigners later sitting in the back of the courtroom listening to proceedings.
Mathilda Dennis, a campaigner from SOS Biscathorpe, mentioned exterior courtroom: “There is no such thing as a case for brand new fossil gasoline exploration anyplace however to think about it in an AONB in proximity to such uncommon and valuable chalk streams is completely unthinkable particularly in a local weather and nature disaster.”
The bid comes after comparable challenges have been introduced by different native teams over choices to permit exploratory gasoline drilling close to the village of Dunsfold on the fringe of the Surrey Hills AONB and close to Balcombe within the Excessive Weald AONB.
The listening to earlier than Mrs Justice Farbey is because of conclude on Thursday with a choice anticipated at a later date.
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