Welsh Councillors Defer Shale Drilling Decision
Vale of Glamorgan councillors have delayed making a decision on a test drilling for shale gas until they have visited the site and received more technical information.
South Wales firm Coastal Oil and Gas together with Australian Eden Energy, had made application for permission to drill a test borehole in part of the rural Vale of Glamorgan.
Coastal had identified a site at Llandow Industrial Estate to conduct exploratory drilling about 700m below the surface to extract mineral samples.
Council officers had recommended a planning application be given the go-ahead, saying while the potential environmental impacts of gas exploitation would require “very careful consideration” of any subsequent planning application, it would be “unreasonable” not to permit the single exploratory borehole.
Residents of Llandow have launched a grass-roots campaign to stop the planned drilling.
Concerns mounted when the South Wales Echo revealed that drilling would take place about 500m from the nearest homes, 24 hours a day for up to seven weeks.
Villagers are also concerned that the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") technique used to extract shale gas could pose an environmental risk.
The protesters have received the support of Vale of Glamorgan MP Alun Cairns, who asked Environment Minister Jane Davidson to “call in” the application or, at the very least, issue a stop notice.
Cairns said: “My greatest worry is about the consequences: the pollution, disruption and potential toxic fall-out from mining the gas.”
Both the company and council planning officers have stressed that the Llandow application is for test drilling and there would have to be another application for any subsequent fracking operation, which would almost certainly require a detailed environmental impact assessment.
A spokesman for Coastal Oil and Gas Limited said: “There is no fracking required and no interaction with ground water with the current proposal. In terms of shales this proposal is the same as any other mineral exploration hole.”
“We are not at the fracking stage – what we are doing in this planning application has got nothing to do with fracking.”
The drilling plan has drawn the support of Member of Parliament for Vale of Ogmore and Shadow Energy Minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, who has pointed to potential for local job-creation and the opportunity to reduce the UK’s dependency on foreign gas.
Irranca-Davies said Vale residents should not be concerned about the proposed Llandow test borehole, but said fracking must be proved “absolutely environmentally safe” before commercial extraction of gas was allowed to go ahead.
Members of the council’s planning committee are planning to visit the site of the proposed drilling on April 14th.
Source: Walesonline.co.uk