Dorset Council is considering an application to extend a previously granted oil drilling plan for ten years. The decision was deferred last week by the Planning Committee after questions were raised about the “significance” of its greenhouse gas impact. It’s now likely to be decided in November or January.
Objections were raised in 2023 when the application appeared to be about to be decided by officers. In the meantime the applicant, Egdon Resources, has prepared a whole raft of information on potential impacts, despite having been screened as not needing an Environmental Impact Assessment.
This follows a landmark Supreme Court ruling – Finch vs Surrey County Council – about the need to assess Scope 3 (or downstream) emissions. At last the law recognised the real impact of a decision to extract fossil fuels: the carbon from the oil when combusted. Sarah Finch, who lives in Exeter, was one of the objectors at the Dorset Council meeting. Dorset Council is one of the first planning authorities to assess Scope 3 emissions in relation to this Judgment.
The operation at Waddock Cross, south of Dorchester, had been mothballed since 2014 because of the high proportion of water in the oil extracted. Egdon Resources want to resume their previous plans for new oil wells and extraction of 138,000 tonnes of oil by 2033.
Objectors at the meeting raised various concerns and questions:
- How much carbon would be emitted in light of Dorset and the UK’s Carbon budgets?
- Would there be a significant climate impact?
- If the plan wasn’t commercially viable in 2014 why was it being resumed now?
If approved, this site could become the second-largest onshore oil production facility in the UK. The applicant estimates that emissions arising from this application could release around 350,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. By any standard this seems unacceptable in a climate crisis and given that the majority of the oil is going to be exported, bringing no benefit to the UK supply.
As an objector I told the committee:
“That’s a major environmental impact in terms of releasing a pollutant that would otherwise not be in the atmosphere. If you refuse permission today, the oil will stay in the ground”.
Now the decision has been deferred there’s still time to object. Visit Dorset’s planning portal https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/planning-buildings-land/planning/planning-application-search-and-comment with the reference: P/VOC/2023/02762
Vicki Elcoate, Lyme Regis resident and Dorset Climate Action trustee
