UPDATE 19th MARCH 2024 – WSCC Cllr Charlotte Kenyon
Today, the WSCC Planning & Rights of Way Committee rejected the application from UKCOG to extend planning permission WSCC/002/22 by a further 24 months. The Committee voted 7/4 against. I spoke as the local member for Pulborough to represent our community. I have attached my notes for the meeting, against which I spoke. The full papers and web cast of the meeting, including my address, can be found at this link Agenda for Planning and Rights of Way Committee on Tuesday, 19 March 2024, 10.30 am (moderngov.co.uk). I hope this site will now be restored.
Statement regarding UKOG
West Chiltington Parish Council were first approached in the Autumn 2016 by UK Oil and Gas (UKOG). They explained they had all the necessary permissions to drill an exploratory well on the Broadford Bridge oil pad site at Wood Barn Farm, on land to the west of the B2133 just inside our parish. The pad site is screened by trees and according to its submission to the Environment Agency is totally isolated from the environment and all liquids found on site including rain water are removed by tanker and disposed of responsibly. The drilling is believed to be conventional in nature and target naturally fractured kimmeridge limestone, where previous exploration in the weald had discovered highly desired light crude oil. The whole of the weald area overlays this kimmeridge limestone which may contain huge light oil deposits. UKOG hold a licence for part of this area estimated at 200sq km. UKOG underlined to us that this was not fracking. In the event that commercials quantities of oil were found then UKOG would seek further permissions from government and county council to extract this oil. This would involve drilling a number of bore holes at 45 degrees but all on the current pad capturing the oil from a large radius, and then transporting in to a refinery, probably Fawley near Southampton by tanker. It is suggested that between 3 and 12 tankers per day would be required, which is a major concern to the Parish Council. The content of this discussion was reported at next parish council and parish planning meetings. At the planning meeting pictures of what the production site would look like were also presented. These meetings were open to the general public and included in the minutes of the meetings and are available on the Parish Council web site
Environment Agency Information on Broadford Bridge Well Site