Scarborough residents gather tomorrow to fight fossil fuel industry

Scarborough residents gather tomorrow to fight council, fossil fuel industry

Scarborough residents will gather tomorrow, 24 April 2026, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a drilling company from installing a fracking rig in a picturesque area of North Yorkshire. They will be fighting an industry that has been given access to government ministers almost a hundred times since the 2024 general election.

Councillors will decide the planning application for the drilling rig in Burniston, a village on the edge of the North York Moors National Park, tomorrow.

The firm, Europa Oil and Gas, has been trying to install the rig since 2024 and accused of trying to bypass emissions limits set by the council. Despite this and the opposition of residents, North Yorkshire Council has recommended the planning committee to approve it.

Residents will lobby councillors outside Scarborough Town Hall ahead of the planning meeting, from midday tomorrow.

Fracking in Scarborough

The firm plans to use a ‘proppant squeeze’ extraction method — considered a form of fracking. The method creates the same risk of earthquakes and other environmental damage as any other form of fracking. University of Edinburgh Professor Stuart Haszeldine said his research on fracking-related tremors indicated that earthquakes from any fracking method are “equally large and equally unpredictable”.

Frack Free Coastal Communities’ Professor Chris Garforth said:

Councillors have a clear choice: reject this reckless scheme – or ignore the voices of the more than 1,600 objectors who refuse to let our community become a testing ground for the serious risks to health, homes, environment and climate that fracking brings.

Friends of the Earth campaigner, Tony Bosworth added:

The government has rightly committed to banning fracking for good. It blights our countryside, won’t lower UK energy bills, and is deeply unpopular.

With significant parts of England already covered by oil and gas licences, the UK government must reassure communities by banning all forms of hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels.

The determination of council officers to push through a dangerous scheme opposed by local people is reminiscent of Liverpool council’s sabotaging of its own legal case to allow the building a huge storage depot in south Liverpool. That depot is right next to a highly explosive chemical processing plant, also opposed by residents and pushed through by the council, similar to one that caused one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in human history. Both are in the heart of the community, only metres from a school.

Featured image via Facebook