Fracking is expected to start within months in North Yorkshire after the High Court rejected a legal challenge by residents and environmental campaigners.
Mrs Justice Lang ruled against Frack Free Ryedale and Friends of the Earth, who had argued that North Yorkshire county council failed to consider properly the contribution of fracking to climate change when granting permission to the fracking company Third Energy.
The judge also rejected a claim that inadequate provisions had been made to protect the community from future detrimental impacts of the industry. She said that the terms of the council’s approval in May gave a “considerable degree of protection to residents”.
The approval was the first for fracking since 2011, when it was temporarily banned after causing minor earthquakes in Lancashire. In October the government overruled Lancashire county council by giving Cuadrilla permission to drill and frack at Preston New Road near Blackpool. Residents are due to challenge that decision in the High Court next year.
Third Energy, which has already drilled a well near Kirby Misperton and is expected to start test fracking for shale gas within a few months, welcomed the ruling and said that it was “well on its way to satisfying” the 40 conditions set by the council. Rasik Valand, chief executive of Third Energy, said: “We are confident that we will prove to the local community that their elected representatives were right to grant this permission.
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“We look forward to the results of the test fracks, which will help to establish whether gas can be produced from deeper and tighter rock formations at the site.”
The Rev Jackie Cray, who took part in the legal action and lives half a mile from the Third Energy site, said: “We are devastated that this decision allows the government to continue to ignore the views of local people.
“We will not be defeated though, because we hold firm in the belief, supported by a huge amount of evidence, that fracking is wrong, and will continue to campaign against this ‘stop-gap’ industry that the government is trying to force on communities across the country.”
Donna Hume, a Friends of the Earth campaigner, said: “The judge found that councillors had assessed the impacts of climate change. But climate change was barely mentioned at that council meeting where the decision was taken.
“Residents have said they will continue to do everything they can to peacefully prevent Third Energy from fracking and we will be standing with them.”