Evidence

All the information relating to Egdon’s gas drilling application can be viewed on the online planning portal via this link:

https://onlineplanningregister.northyorks.gov.uk/Register/Planning/Display/NY/2025/0113/FUL#undefined

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Click on the documents section to view:

• Egdon’s Planning Document submissions;

• Correspondence relating to the application;

• Consultation responses*

• Public representations.

 

*Consultation responses. These are submitted by what are termed ‘statutory consultees.’ These are organisations that the planning authority is legally required to consult before making a determination on the application. So in this instance that includes Foxholes with Butterwick and Wold Newton Parish Councils, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water etc.

 

Key Issues

The key issues which have been raised by both statutory consultees and the public include (but are not exclusively confined to) the following:

 

1. Unacceptable risk to surface and groundwater

The proposal affects a Principal Chalk Aquifer, dependent water systems and potential drinking water resources, with risks that may be serious, uncertain and irreversible.

 

2. Impact on the Yorkshire Wolds proposed National Landscape and wider Landscape & Visual Impact

The proposal would affect the setting, character, tranquillity and visual qualities of a highly sensitive landscape identified for potential national designation. The concern is amplified by alleged LVIA deficiencies, including limited viewpoint selection, inadequate seasonal assessment, underestimation of landscape value, and insufficient assessment of lighting, rig visibility and cumulative landscape effects.

 

3. Traffic, access and highway safety concerns

Egdon’s reliance on narrow rural roads, HGV movements through

Foxholes, speeding, limited pedestrian infrastructure, vulnerable road users, lack of

alternative access, emergency resilience concerns, stop-start emissions and unresolved highway mitigation. Taken together, these issues raise a material question as to whether the development can be safely and acceptably accommodated on the local road network.

 

4. Deficiencies in the Air Quality Assessment and methane/emissions evidence

There are technical issues relating to meteorology, valley inversion, VOCs, flare assumptions, receptors and greenhouse gas impacts which materially undermine confidence in the assessment of air- quality and climate effects.

 

5. Inadequate policy compliance and incomplete evidence base

The application appears to rely on assertions rather than robust, measurable proof across several key policy areas, including groundwater, noise, climate, residential amenity, landscape, biodiversity and cumulative effects.

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(KVA Planning 2026)