Councillors Briefing Note
No. 257
Service: Economic Development and Planning
Further Enquiries to: Alistair Cunningham
Date Prepared: 29/09/15
Direct Line: (01225) 713203
WILTSHIRE COUNCIL’S RESPONSE TO THE HABITATS REGULATIONS ASSESSMENT
OF 14TH ONSHORE OIL AND GAS LICENSING ROUND, CONSULTATION ON PROPOSED
ASSESSMENT, OIL & GAS AUTHORITY (AUGUST 2015)
This briefing note has been prepared to provide a summary of the Council’s response to the
‘Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) 14th Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing Round Consultation on proposed assessment’ published on 18 August 2015. The full consultation
response is appended to this briefing note.
This update on the Consultation response follows the recent Briefing Note No. 252 which gave
background information and an overview of the consultation.
It is worth noting that this is a Government led process and that if members of the public want
to comment regarding the issue of fracking or the process for issuing licences, these should be
directed to their local MPs rather than the Council.
The Secretaries of State for Energy and Climate Change and for Communities and Local
Government set out the Government’s view on the exploration and development of shale gas
and oil resources in the Shale gas and oil policy statement by DECC and DCLG published 13
August 2015. This statement will need to be taken into account in planning decisions.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shale-gas-and-oil-policy-statement-by-decc-anddclg/shale-gas-and-oil-policy-statement-by-decc-and-dclg
Background
From the bidding round undertaken last year, Department of Energy and Climate Change
(DECC) received 95 licence applications to explore for onshore oil and gas covering 295
‘blocks’ in England, Scotland and Wales, of which 159 blocks remain for further consideration four of these relate to Wiltshire.
This information has been made available as part of a consultation by the Oil & Gas Authority
(Executive Agency of DECC) published on 18 August 2015. The consultation focused on
whether the Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) undertaken on these 159 blocks is
robust and not whether these areas should be subject to hydrocarbon (oil and gas) exploration
or extraction.
Wiltshire Council responded to the consultation on 29 September 2015 giving its considered
views both on the consultation in general as well as on the technical assessment carried out,
with particular reference to the four blocks identified in the Wiltshire area.
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Response Summary
Wiltshire Council considers that:

Whilst the Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) is intended as a strategic level
assessment, it has failed to take into consideration the available evidence to identify
the potential effects of fracking upon the Natura 2000 network.

At a strategic level the HRA does very little to direct potentially damaging activities
away from higher risk areas, while the proposed conditions fail to effectively restrict
activities within the areas to be licensed. In this respect, the assessment fails to take a
sufficiently precautionary approach as envisaged by the Habitats Directive and advised
by the European Commission, while also failing to consider the in-combination effects
of other plans or projects, as clearly and explicitly required by the Directive.

The HRA as currently written therefore represents a missed opportunity to direct the
industry away from areas of abortive exploratory work - creating unnecessary tension
within local communities.

The opportunity should be taken at this stage to rule out the granting of licences in
higher risk areas and thus avoid abortive investment by developers and tension with
local communities, particularly where HRA at the project level is likely to prohibit oil and
gas exploration activities.

The HRA has failed to properly consider, with particular regard to Wiltshire:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Impacts on the aquatic environment in respect of pollution, water abstraction
and disturbance effects on sensitive species
Precautionary Principle
In-combination Assessment
Furthermore, in relation to the four blocks in Wiltshire (ST84, ST85, ST94 and ST95):

The Council is not aware of any geotechnical analysis that indicates any shale
oil and gas deposits to be sufficiently mature within Wiltshire warranting the
granting of licences within the area. Without appropriate evidence of mature
deposits there should be no granting of licences.

It is the Council’s view, as Minerals Planning Authority and competent authority, that
proposed wells close to Natura 2000 sites would be highly unlikely to pass an
appropriate assessment and therefore it would be unable to approve planning
permission for such wells. Exploration and production activities would therefore
effectively be excluded from significant areas within the blocks, indicating that these
blocks should be removed from the current round of licences.

At the very least if licences are to be granted for these blocks, buffer areas of varying
sizes based on local and empirical evidence should be used to effectively exclude
fracking activities from sensitive, high risk areas close to the designations, where it is
not possible to rule out effects on site integrity based on the available information.

And in particular, the Council is concerned about the identification of the four blocks in
Wiltshire for the following reasons:
(i)
(ii)
Blocks ST84, ST94 and ST95 in relation to the River Avon Special Area of
Conservation (SAC) resulting from water abstraction, pollution and vibration;
and
Blocks ST84 and ST85 in relation to Bath and Bradford Bats SAC and Salisbury
Plain Special Area of Protection (SAP)
Next Steps
We are not sighted on the process that will follow the receipt of consultation responses, but
normally we would expect a report to be produced in due course.
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